Q: I ran the SMART test,and error code said HD 521-2W.I called HP and they will send new HD.What does this error mean?My computer runs fine now,no problems.The guy from HP said to swap the HD and I'll be fine ...no need to reformat ?
A: A SMART (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) failure is usually the first indicator that a hard drive is about to fail. Since this is your secondary drive, you would probably not notice any issues until it completely failed on you. Generally, it is "over-cautious" in its detecting failures to reduce the possibility of data loss. A hard drive with a SMART failure can run for months before it has a complete failure. The drive from HP is going to be pre-loaded with a factory image of the hard drive. This means that it will not have anything that you have personally installed on it. What that means is that all the data you have saved on the current hard drive will need to be backed up to a different disk, and transferred back to your new hard drive after you have swapped them. If you already have everything backed up, then simply swap the drives and transfer the data over.