Receiving S.M.A.R.T. status bad backup and replace error

Updated: 06/02/2020 by Computer Hope

If your computer encounters the error, “S.M.A.R.T. Status BAD, Backup and Replace. Press F1 to resume,” it’s likely your hard drive has failed, or is about to fail.

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What is S.M.A.R.T.?

The S.M.A.R.T. system is a utility that monitors the “health” of the hard drive and reports any potential problems. As an early warning system, it allows the computer owner time to back up any important files before the hard drive fails. In the above example, the error message indicates that the Pri Master (primary master) hard drive is the drive that is bad. If there is more than one hard drive in the computer, this error may change depending on the bad drive.

What should I do if I encounter this error?

If the computer can boot after pressing the F1 immediately backup all information on the computer and contact the hard drive manufacturer for replacement or additional help. In some very rare cases, the S.M.A.R.T. implementation on your computer may have issues of its own and may need to be patched before replacing the hard drive.

• How to back up your computer.

If you press the F1 and the computer doesn’t boot, one or more of the boot files that are required to boot may be corrupt. It may still be possible to recover some of the data on the hard drive. You need to boot from another disk like an UBCD or Linux LiveCD, which you can create on another computer. Once you’ve booted to an alternate location, the files may still be accessible on the bad drive. If they are accessible, they can be moved to an alternative location, such as a USB jump drive.

If I get a S.M.A.R.T. error, should I continue to use my hard drive?

As stated above, S.M.A.R.T. is designed to detect upcoming failures in the hard drive. While the hard drive may not fail for several months, it’s still inevitable it’s going to fail. It is ok to continue to use the hard drive. However, we highly recommend if you are still under warranty you consider getting the drive replaced before your warranty runs out.

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• How to enter the BIOS or CMOS setup.

1720 – smart hard drive detects imminent failure

This error message is related to S.M.A.R.T. and is an indication of failure. See above recommendations for additional details.