Six months ago, I replaced the failing hard drive in my Linux laptop, and already, the SMART tools are telling me that I should back up and replace the hard drive — a high number of sectors have gone bad.
Hmmm. What’s this? SMART also reported that the hard drive had reached “overheating” temperature ranges. Why would that be? I did some Google searching, and came up with the following advice:
- Don’t close the laptop lid while it is powered up! This is how I had normally run my Linux laptop — it’s a server, and I leave the lid closed. Oops! I’ve changed the power settings so that when the laptop lid is closed, it sleeps.
- Edit /etc/grub.conf and add acpi_osi=Linux or try acpi=off to seee if apm (automatic hardware control) will take over. I’ve just started trying the former. UPDATE 8 Feb 2011: Using this prevented my laptop from waking up from sleep, so I stopped using it.
- Vacuum the dust off the fan screen (to prevent airflow blockage)
- Monitor the temperature with ‘smartclt’
Based on a tip from my father (a long time Linux expert), I ran “smartctl -H /dev/sda”, and it says “SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED”. I assume it means the hard drive is still okay, but I had better not forget to make regular backups, and monitor the status of the hard drive.