Need help with boot up hard disk failure imminent message

Hi,

I have a Vaio pentium 4 desktop computer with a 60 gig hard drive, 2.4 ghz processor and 512 RAM. When I boot up, I receive a warning that says "hard drive failure imminent, back up all data" and I have to press F1 to continue the boot up process. After that, the computer runs, a bit slower than it should, but with no further error messages. What could be the problem? Thanks so much!

 

Smart drive is detecting that the drive is failing.. plain and simple..replace the drive and make sure you backup your data before hand. If your machine is under warranty, contact your manufacturer for warranty replacement information. If not, then we can help you find a drive if you need.