I just installed Windows 7 Pro last night and am getting this error with a new hard drive that i have had for about 1 week. The previous week it has worked fine, and I was running Windows 7 Pro N . Not sure if that makes a difference. I have a WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 64mb cache. It is my secondary D drive. I ran into this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/c5626570-37a8-4cf9-b2b3-7ba153499fac And it sounded like it was possible it was not failing, but had some sort of interfacing issue with windows. I downloaded and ran the manufacturers diagnostic tool and did a quick SMART test and it passed. I then ran chkdsk /r and it completed no problems. I have a few questions. 1) Did the chkdsk check both of my hard drives or just C? 2) Is my hard drive ok? 3) What further steps can be taken to ensure my hard drive is ok? 4) If its ok, how can I make the message stop popping up? I have the latest mobo drivers installed, the latest bios firmware flashed, and all windows 7 updates including SP1.

I just installed Windows 7 Pro last night and am getting this error with a new hard drive that i have had for about 1 week. The previous week it has worked fine, and I was running Windows 7 Pro N . Not sure if that makes a difference. I have a WD Caviar Black 1TB 7200 RPM 64mb cache. It is my secondary D drive. I ran into this thread: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itprogeneral/thread/c5626570-37a8-4cf9-b2b3-7ba153499fac And it sounded like it was possible it was not failing, but had some sort of interfacing issue with windows. I downloaded and ran the manufacturers diagnostic tool and did a quick SMART test and it passed. I then ran chkdsk /r and it completed no problems. I have a few questions. 1) Did the chkdsk check both of my hard drives or just C? 2) Is my hard drive ok? 3) What further steps can be taken to ensure my hard drive is ok? 4) If its ok, how can I make the message stop popping up? I have the latest mobo drivers installed, the latest bios firmware flashed, and all windows 7 updates including SP1. Please download data guard diagnostics for Western Digital Black Caviar SATA HDDs. http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=613&sid=3&lang=en SMART errors are great but they are only, "current" status diags. You need to run full disk diagnostics because you typically will not see that error unless the OS has run an algorithm/string to detect that the hard disk in its present running state will fail soon. Intel Matrix Storage Manager will also show that kind of error if a hard disks life will terminate prematurely. If your diagnostics show that the drive 'WILL' fail, its because years of hard disk failures... Microsoft and other vendors have recorded signs or trends of disks beginning their regimine to failure. They have written these disk failure signatures out in their hard coding, and you now get prompted. Unlike back in Windows 95 days... disk failure... no backup... no warning. Phone Support at Western Digital (not required) http://support.wdc.com/contact/index.asp?lang=en RMA PROCEDURES (If diags show sign of failure... start your RMA - WD QA teams will find it extremely useful to find the Mfg. defect before it completely fails) http://support.wdc.com/warranty/index_end.asp?lang=en Recommend: US Postal Services One price for 1 box ...instead of $50+ shipping at Fedex or UPS for the weight of the drive + size of the box. Get bubble-wrap... if you have an antistatic bag, get it ready to ship after you backup your data. Western Digital also provide Acronis True Image WD Edition backup on their WD Black Caviar page. http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=613&lang=en Hope the Diagnostics pass but keep a backup on the safe side. Those errors don't shine lightly... Best Regards,Steve Kline Microsoft Certified IT Professional: Server Administrator Microsoft Certified Product Specialist Microsoft Certified Network Product Specialist Red Hat Certified System Administrator This posting is "as is" without warranties and confers no rights.

Ok thank you for your help. I RMA'ed the device and will be getting the replacement shortly.