a method and system for detecting and reporting storage hardware failure prediction is disclosed . the method and system provide a standardized mechanism for any type of storage device to predict and report storage failures . this includes smart scsi devices , smart ata / atapi devices , non - smart scsi devices , non - smart ata / atapi devices , proprietary storage devices , and others such as cd - rom drives , dvd roms , tape drives , and ram disks . a device driver obtains failure prediction status information and propagates it to a management application . the information may be propagated via a failure prediction filter driver used to perform statistical analysis or proprietary access to the hardware . in a windows operating environment , information is propagated from the device driver through a windows management instrumentation component . the windows management instrumentation component bridges the gap across user mode and kernel mode , thereby allowing management applications in user mode to obtain information from device drivers residing in kernel mode . a standardized set of apis is provided for performing storage device failure prediction .