Gnome reports 'A hard disk is failing'. Should I be worried?
Problem:
When logging into the Gnome desktop in Fedora 11, you receive a message 'A hard disk is failing'.
Details:
This message is generated by the Palimpsest disk utility. The palimpsest utility will periodically check the disk and report any problems that it finds. Unfortunately, the utility will report a failing drive even if only a single sector has been reallocated. Reallocated sectors are very common, even on new drives. A small number of bad sectors is nothing to be concerned about.
To determine if the drive is truly failing, right click on the drive notification icon, and then select the drive you wish to check. After the utility starts, click on the detail button. If the number of reallocated sectors is small the drive, the drive is probably fine.
To disable the failure message access the Startup Application preferences:
System->Preferences->Startup Applications
And then disable 'Disk Notifications'.
The next time you log into the desktop, the warning will be gone.