Q:

Hard drive error rate

I recently installed Ubuntu and am loving it. The only issue that seems to persist is a bit of a (very soft) scratching sound coming from my HDD. I checked my drive manager and it appears to have a high read error rate. Is this a major issue? The software said any value other than 0 "indicates a problem with the disk or the read/write heads."
Here's a quick screenie for reference: 
Thanks for any help!

A:

The raw value for the read rate is meaningless, and basically all drives show really big numbers there.  The normalized value of 118 with a threadhold value of 6 indicates that it is a LONG way from being a problem indicator ( it has to get from 118 down to 6, and the worst it has ever been is 99 ).  This is why the assessment column reports that it is ok.
So, there is nothing wrong with this drive, at least based on that value.

