Is there a way of knowing beforehand if the hard disk going to crash so that one may retrieve all the data before hand?
Umm.. There are a lot of S.M.A.R.T. monitoring tools available, but they are not that accurate or reliable. Try HDD Life for a feel of it.
*www.hddlife.com/eng/download-freeware.html
*www.techdigest.tv/2006/03/hard_disk_healt.html
*www.programurl.com/software/disk-health-check.htm
*www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress/disk.asp
i hope these links will help you to know something about your hard disk .....
Use Diskeeper to get a clear report of your HDD. It is also a best defragment tool.
Try HDD Life its a good software
This link is what you need *downloads.techrepublic.com.com/download.aspx?docid=173177&tag=nl.e138
this shows the info u are lookin for
Try HDD life as it always states the condition of u r hard drive....
try HDD life ... it will give u the status of hard disk...
*www.hddlife.com/eng/download-freeware.html
it is nice ....