Re: [smartmontools-support]Error SMART Enable failed: Input/output error

[Bruce A. <ba...@gr...>]

>>> I suggest that you try a recent CVS snapshot version of smartmontools. 
>>> Older versions had a bug where you could not enable SMART on a disk that 
>>> had failing SMART status.
>>> 
>> 
>> What does enabling smart in the BIOS actually do? Does it enable smart
>> on the hard disk after system reset or powerup?
>> 
> According to some information on the smartctl web page, enabling SMART in the 
> BIOS checks the disk for errors during BIOS startup.  However, toggling SMART 
> in BIOS does not affect smartctl.

Enabling SMART in the BIOS usually does two things.

1) On bootup, turn on the disk SMART monitoring
2) On bootup, if the disk SMART status is 'failing', then refuse to
    complete the bootup process; issue and error message at the BIOS level
    and refuse to even boot.

Caveat: this behavior may depend upon the BIOS version/type/supplier.

Bruce