Hard Disk Loose Contact? T61p

I just bought my T61p a few months back just before the new line of computers came out. Today when I was at college, it failed to boot up. And showed an error saying Hard Disk failure. I had received this error once before but when i rebooted, it was fine.
This time around though reboot dint work. Tried it around a couple of times. Then my friend took the laptop, shook it a few times and Voila! it was working again. I guess there is some kind of loose contact somewhere. Is it something I can fix?

I usually ride to college using a moped. The ride can be a lil bumpy. Still I don't think its usual for the hard disk to fail on me? Is it?

 

I don't think it's UNusual to fail hence the term backup. It may be caused by the term sticktation. Realy.

 

Download hdtune and look at the SMART values and drive health. If the health is fine try opening the HDD bay and reseat the drive into the sata connection in case the connection is loose. But i would tend to think the drive is starting to fail

 

Hmmm HD tune wasn't showing any smart values after running all the tests. I have linux installed and ran the

smartctl -all /dev/sda

command. Here is what I got :

Code:

smartctl --all /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.38 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/                           

Smartctl open device: /dev/hda failed: No such file or directory
[root@localhost dev]# smartctl --all /dev/sda                
smartctl version 5.38 [i386-redhat-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/                           

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Western Digital Scorpio family
Device Model:     WDC WD1600BEVS-08RST2        
Serial Number:    WD-WXC508710579              
Firmware Version: 08.01G08                     
User Capacity:    160,041,885,696 bytes        
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   7                                             
ATA Standard is:  Exact ATA specification draft version not indicated
Local Time is:    Wed Feb 18 22:36:26 2009 IST                      
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.          
SMART support is: Enabled                                           

=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.             
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Self-test execution status:      ( 249) Self-test routine in progress...      
                                        90% of test remaining.                
Total time to complete Offline                                                
data collection:                 (6780) seconds.                              
Offline data collection                                                       
capabilities:                    (0x7b) SMART execute Offline immediate.      
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new        
                                        command.                                   
                                        Offline surface scan supported.            
                                        Self-test supported.                       
                                        Conveyance Self-test supported.            
                                        Selective Self-test supported.             
SMART capabilities:            (0x0003) Saves SMART data before entering           
                                        power-saving mode.                         
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.            
Error logging capability:        (0x01) Error logging supported.                   
                                        General Purpose Logging supported.         
Short self-test routine                                                            
recommended polling time:        (   2) minutes.                                   
Extended self-test routine                                                         
recommended polling time:        (  87) minutes.                                   
Conveyance self-test routine                                                       
recommended polling time:        (   6) minutes.                                   
SCT capabilities:              (0x103f) SCT Status supported.                      
                                        SCT Feature Control supported.             
                                        SCT Data Table supported.                  

SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 16
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds: 
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000f   200   200   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       1
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0003   188   187   021    Pre-fail  Always       -       1558
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0032   099   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       1227
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0033   200   200   140    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000f   100   253   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  9 Power_On_Hours          0x0032   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       3208
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   051    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 11 Calibration_Retry_Count 0x0012   100   100   051    Old_age   Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0032   100   100   000    Old_age   Always       -       670
192 Power-Off_Retract_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       59
193 Load_Cycle_Count        0x0032   186   186   000    Old_age   Always       -       42230
194 Temperature_Celsius     0x0022   108   099   000    Old_age   Always       -       39
196 Reallocated_Event_Count 0x0032   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
197 Current_Pending_Sector  0x0012   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
198 Offline_Uncorrectable   0x0010   100   253   000    Old_age   Offline      -       0
199 UDMA_CRC_Error_Count    0x003e   200   200   000    Old_age   Always       -       0
200 Multi_Zone_Error_Rate   0x0009   100   253   051    Pre-fail  Offline      -       0

SMART Error Log Version: 1
No Errors Logged

SMART Self-test log structure revision number 1
No self-tests have been logged.  [To run self-tests, use: smartctl -t]


SMART Selective self-test log data structure revision number 1
 SPAN  MIN_LBA  MAX_LBA  CURRENT_TEST_STATUS
    1        0        0  Not_testing
    2        0        0  Not_testing
    3        0        0  Not_testing
    4        0        0  Not_testing
    5        0        0  Not_testing
Selective self-test flags (0x0):
  After scanning selected spans, do NOT read-scan remainder of disk.
If Selective self-test is pending on power-up, resume after 0 minute delay.

Anything wrong with this???? Ok, now I noticed that the Load_Cycle_Count is really high 42230. Why is this? Isn't this bad?