Symptoms
- A pop-up says 'Hard drive failure is imminent' or similar
- Third-party drive monitoring tool shows a red or warning status
- BIOS shows a SMART error message at startup
- Drive is showing other symptoms too, like slowness or noise
Likely causes
- CommonReallocated or pending sectors climbing beyond a safe thresholdThis is the most common trigger for SMART warnings and indicates real wear.
- CommonRising error rates in read/write operationsIncreasing error counts are an early sign of mechanical or flash wear.
- PossibleDrive temperature consistently running too highChronic overheating accelerates wear and can trigger warnings.
- Less commonA single anomalous reading that isn't actually a trendOccasionally a warning fires from a one-off glitch rather than real decline.
What to do
- Back up all important data from the drive immediately, treating this as urgent.
- Use a monitoring tool (like CrystalDiskInfo) to see exactly which SMART attributes triggered the warning.
- Note whether the concerning values are climbing over time by checking again in a week if you're not ready to replace it yet.
- Avoid heavy, sustained use of the drive (like large transfers or defragmenting) until it's replaced.
- Buy a replacement drive and migrate your system or files over as soon as practical.
- Once fully migrated, stop using the old drive for anything important, even as secondary storage.
Tools and parts
- SMART monitoring tool such as CrystalDiskInfo
Replacement hard drive or SSDSearch: “internal replacement drive matching capacity”
When to call a pro
If the drive holds data you can't afford to lose and hasn't been backed up yet, get a data recovery professional involved before doing anything else with it.
Safety
Use caution
Treat a SMART failure warning as urgent: back up now, since the drive could stop working with no further notice.