hard disk issue?

Hi. I'm looking for advice. My laptop has been crashing and/or freezing with increasing frequency over the last 6 months. Now I'm getting a new message: "windows detected a hard disk problem." This window pops up a couple times an hour.

I just got a clean bill of health from the Malware forum. They suggested hardware forum.

I have a Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5145, Windows 7.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks.

 

Your hard drive is failing.

If you haven't already done so, back up your files immediately.

If you buy a new drive now, you may be able to clone the existing hard drive (including the factory Windows restore partition) onto the new one. Buy a drive that has at least as much storage capacity as the old one. If you buy a Western Digital or Seagate brand drive, free cloning software is available on the manufacturers' respective websites.

 

Toshiba has software tools you can use to check the integrity of the drive. You can find them here, specifically Windows Diagnostic Tool Ver. 1.12:

http://storage.toshiba.com/storage-services-support/warranty-support/software-utilities

or Direct Link:

http://storage.toshiba.com/techdocs/fjdtwin.exe