Active SMART created in a such a manner to combine powerful drive monitoring software with an easy to use interface. Using of Active SMART is easy and it doesn't require any extra knowledge. This documentation contains all the information to understand principles of Active SMART using and some information about S.M.A.R.T. 

To start using Active SMART just run ActiveSMART.exe. It will start minimized. When Active SMART is running you can always find its icon near the clock in the system tray (right lower corner of the desktop). That's it - from now Active SMART works for you. If Active SMART detect any S.M.A.R.T. event it will notify you. After start Active SMART detects all your drives and monitors their S.M.A.R.T. status and temperatures.

Some words about Active SMART modes. Active SMART has two modes of operation:

• Continuous Monitoring Mode: Active SMART continuously monitors the status of your disk drives using their S.M.A.R.T. and their temperature. Its small loader module resides in memory and periodically runs main Active SMART module to check S.M.A.R.T. attributes and drive temperatures. You can change the polling time in the Preferences tab and set it between 1 minute and 99 hours. You can always show the main window and get all information about drives with the help of tray icon menu  (right click on the icon and select Show Active SMART )  
  This mode is useful if you use Active SMART with servers or computers that work without restarting system every day. Also this mode is useful when your want to monitor your drives on a regular basis with a small polling period.  When Active SMART resides in memory it uses only 250 Kb of the RAM, and does not require more resources.

• Quick Test Mode: Active SMART starts at system startup, check the state of your disk drives and finishes, if no problems detected. This mode is useful if you restart system every day. To enable this mode check the Exit if no errors detected option in the Preferences tab. By default it's disabled and Active SMART stays in the system tray.

If Active SMART detect any problem or any attribute has changed, the program alerts you and show detailed status of the disks.
To enable monitoring of your disk drives at Windows startup, please check the box "Enable monitoring at Windows startup" in the Preferences tab.