When in my father in-laws today he tried to start his PC and got a message

S.M.A.R.T boot failed

and PC would not boot ?

smartass pc m8 =P

there is more than one off them about :)

Did you try whacking the side of the PC case with your hand? Usually works....it's a known 'fix' in the MS Knowledgebase ;)

S.M.A.R.T. it's the early warning indication that all's not happy with the harddrive, first thing i would do is to reseat all of the harddrive cables, (it should tell you which one, but do both drives just in case), Don't forget the Harddrive data cable has two ends to be re-seated.

once you done that and it hasn't cleared it, download the diagnostic utility from the harddrive manufacturers website, if you can't find the website, but know the manufacturers name i'll try and find the link for you.

Assuming it was bought from a shop and still under warrenty then take the machine in to get it sorted, failing that If the computer is reasonably new, ie less than a year you should definatly be able to send the harddrive off for a replacement one, but you will loose all of the data on there. If it's older than a year, but younger than three you may still have a chance but you'd have to check the serial number of the drive against the warrenty status on the maufacturers website.

Any more info, feel free to ask.

C

i had a smart warning and i lost several gig of info!!! if u have a lot of data get a second hard drive and back up everything NOW or if u have a cdrw drive use that. my drive lasted 3 days from first problem i got the smart warning only 2 days befor it whent so i lost all my files.

back up what u can and when u fix the problem keep a back up, other things can kill drives like the mother bord controler so ceep copys of things

This on a HP machine by any chance?

I've got a load of HP Brios at work and when ever we get SMART warnings, normally means the HDD is on the way out. Re-install job first

Thanks for the help lads,

Its a Packard Bell PC we tried to boot it 4 times and only once did it boot, The PC is 4 years old but I think the father in-law has one of the 5 year extended warranty on it