how do i access S.M.A.R.T. to enable it on dimension 3000

That refers to an internal hard drive monitoring technology that SOME hard drives have, not something that is enabled or disabled in the BIOS. 

Most aftermarket motherboard bio's do allow you to enable or disable s.m.a.r.t. on the hard drive, Dell has never offered this, one would assume it is enabled on a Dell but who knows.

 

Most reviews of smart technology say it does a poor job of indicating a hard drive failure is immanent.

 

Here is a free SMART monitoring tool

 

HDD Health v2.1 Build 159

http://www.panterasoft.com/

 

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=smart+monitoring+software   others

My advice as usual.

 

Here is some good advice when installing programs in Vista, # 4 is good advice even if the program was designed for Vista.

Here is how to install software or drivers on Vista that are for XP,2000,NT4,98,95

1. Right click on the setup.exe file for the software/driver you are trying to install and select properties, if there is an "Unblock" button on the General Tab, click it, then go to the compatibility Tab

2. Tick the "run this file in compatibility mode" box and then select XP, or whatever OS the software was designed for, in the drop down box, Tick "run as Administrator" if it is available, hit OK

3. Now double click this setup.exe file to execute the install process, hopefully all will go well and install the drivers/Software you need.

4. If the exe installs software for the device, or you have installed software only, you need to navigate to the program folder where it installed, then do the compatibility thing (1 & 2) again for the program executable(s). If the program was designed for Vista skip compatibility mode, just tick "run as administrator"

I do not guarantee all drivers or software to work in Vista, but a large percentage do..

Good luck.

If the Software/ installer (exe file) is on CD, copy the entire contents of the CD to a folder in Vista, then start at #1

There is no compatibility mode for .msi installers
16 bit programs will not run on Vista

If Drivers are in INF form, go to Device manager, find the hardware you want to install a driver for and right click select "Update Driver Software", select "Browse My Computer for Driver Software", Hit the Browse button, navigate to the folder with the driver and then hit next. Follow the prompts.

mombodog,

"HDD Health v2.1 Build 159". Does this work with Vista as well?

"My advice as usual". Yep - I know the drill. Just wondered if you had tried it on Vista.

No, I guess I just don't care enough about smart.