How to Fix Smart Hard Disk Error 301 on Windows - Step-by-Step Guide

A sudden failure message on the hard disk drive ( HDD ) or on the solid state drive ( SSD ) after you turn on your desktop or laptop runnin...

A sudden failure message on the hard disk drive (HDD) or on the solid state drive (SSD) after you turn on your desktop or laptop running Windows or Mac OS X operating systems might lead to an imminent failure. At times, your hard drive starts displaying some uncertain error message:

"The SMART Hard Disk check has detected an imminent failure. To ensure no data lose, please backup the content immediately and run the hard disk test in system diagnostic. Hard Disk 1 SMART (301), want to continue press enter"

This error symbolizes a failure in the device, which could have been taken place or expecting a failure soon. This error usually occurs when your computer device is trying to boot. There could be various causes of this problem that may lead to it, some major ones are:

• The SMART (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) hard disk check has been failed and asking you to replace the drive.
• If after replacing the drive still you receive the same error, then possibly the motherboard has a broken IDE/SATA controller chip. In this case, each hard drive you connect to the system will show you the same error over and over again.
• At times, the imminent failure message after booting into Windows could also be a spyware or malware effect that pretends your SMART HDD error to be real.
• Well, whenever SMART fails it signifies some physical problem in the hard disk, which is going to fail soon and needs to be replaced. In order to resolve this issue, follow the below mentioned steps:

1. First, remove the hard drive and then reconnect again.
2. Next, start the Windows system while pressing f10 to enter the bios menu.
3. Now, under the ‘Advanced or Diagnostic’, you will find an option to run a test on the Hard Drive and let it complete the test.
4. After successful test, if your system still opened with the 301 error then you left with a single choice, which is to replace the hard drive.

Additionally, you can also use ‘chkdsk’ command in Windows OS that can scan, diagnose, and repair the bad sectors in the hard drives and also create and display a status report for the current disk based on the file system. This command also lists and corrects errors on the disk.

Steps to run ‘chkdsk’:

1. Run “chkdsk /f /r” by going to System Recovery Options menu and then selecting Command prompt to initiate repairing of your disk issues like directory errors, lost clusters, bad sectors, and cross-linked files.
   Note: Make sure you have backed up complete data before running check disk as it might increases the chances of losing data.
2. Now, insert the Windows installation disc and restart your system.
3. Restart your system. If prompted, press any key to start Windows from the installation disc.
   Note: In case your system is not configured to start from a CD or DVD, check the configuration in BIOS.
4. Now, select the language settings, and then click Next.
5. Select Repair option on your computer.
6. Now, choose the operating system you want to repair and click Next button.
7. On the System Recovery Options menu, click Command prompt.
8. At a command prompt, type the below mentioned command and press ENTER
   ‘Chkdsk /f /r X:( drive letter)’
9. Select Y when you are prompted to check the disk the next time that the system restarts.
10. Restart the computer again after closing all applications.

Check a drive for errors (Windows 10, Windows 8.1, Windows 8, and Windows 7)

In order to check a hard drive for errors to fix performance issues or physical issues check a drive for errors.

1. Go to Start button, and then click Computer.
2. Right-click the drive you want to check, and select Properties
3. Go to Tools tab, and then click Check now under Error-checking option. To complete this step administrator permission required.
4. Now, select ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ to repair problems along with files and folders automatically. You will need to select this option otherwise the disk check will only report issues instead of fixing them.
5. Choose ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’ to run thorough check. Such type of scan finds and repairs all the physical errors on the drive, due to which it could be quite time consuming.
6. Choose both ‘Automatically fix file system errors’ & ‘Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors’ to analyze for both file errors and physical errors.
7. Click Start.

This process might take several minutes depending upon the size of your drive. If even after following all above explained solutions, the problem does not resolve, then you can contact to your system manufacturer for more help. Apart from this, you can also use reliable Windows disk recovery software that recovers your precious data from an inaccessible hard drive. Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is an advanced utility that is highly recommended by most of the professionals due to its high efficiency and accurate results.