hard drive failure

my girlfriends presario v5306us, got this message from hp.com after doing a bios/driver update(system health check)...."SMART Hard Drive detects imminent failure. Your hard disk drive is detecting an imminent failure. To ensure no data loss, backup contents and replace this hard disk."

i performed self check on computor, long test and it passed..computor says its ok but hp.com says failure..im confused

computor has been running slower than normal,have performed defrag. already. any suggestions on the error or should hard drive be replaced? no error codes or shutdowns while using computor beside being slow all seems fine.

win xp home sp 3.0
21gb of 75gb used
processor: amd turion 64
version: x86 family 15 model 36 stepping 2
speed: 1790 mhz
cache: 512

 

So backup those files just in case.
Theoretically you can continue to use the drive(after you backup..backup now) as long as you keep in mind it may just stop functioning and you will not be able to retreive data.

Petaluma

 

I agree with Pentaluma! Quite nice and civilized for your drive to warn you. :-D Backup anything you want to keep. The drive may fail in an hour, a day, or a year, but I would never trust it.

 

My experience from HP/Compaq when it says imminent failure it means IMMINENT! I had three HD fail in a Compaq and each went within 10 days of the first message.

Advise your GF to save everything she wants right away. She may only get another dozen normal boot-ups.

I wouldn't worry about the discrepancy between the long test and the SMART status. SMART continually monitors the HD and when errors accumulate the status goes from good to bad. Once the status is bad the HD isn't reliable enough to be used as the Operating System drive. It's time to get a new one, especially for a laptop where you don't have too many options for adding a second HD.

 

hey ya'll, still having problem with all of sudden shutdown,it seems to be in the power cord to laptop,yesterday it kept shutting down repeatedly since then the monitor is dimmly lit and i cant figure out how to adjust/fix this can anyone help!!!

 

ok this gets better lol,,,when the 110 cable is not plugged into laptop the screen is at full resolution duh what is going on????????