What does it mean when I get an Ultra DMA mode-2 S.M.A.R.T. error at startup?
Reader: I am receiving error messages at boot, reading “Ultra DMA mode-2 S.M.A.R.T. Capable but disabled.” The line immediately preceding reads, “Pri Master : 9517 FUJITSU MPA3035ATU” I’m not sure if this is connected. Can you tell me what’s going on? Computer Doctor: This is not really an error message, it’s an informational message. S.M.A.R.T. stands for Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology. This is a recent feature that provides near-term failure prediction for disc drives. When S.M.A.R.T. is enabled, the drive monitors predetermined drive attributes that are susceptible to degradation over time. If a failure is likely to occur, S.M.A.R.T. makes a status report available so that the host BIOS or driver software can prompt the user to back up the data on the drive. Obviously not all failures are predictable, and S.M.A.R.T. predictability is limited to the attributes the drive can monitor, attributes which are pre-determined by the drive manufacturer and cannot be modifi
