Scarey message---Hard drive failure???

My computer was working fine (Compaq Presario 6000 with Windows XP), but had picked up the "about:blank" hompage. I followed the tips here and disabled "restore", and ran a couple of the cleaning programs--CWshredder, Spybot, etc and when it said to restart the computer, it had this message:

"1720 SMART Hard Drive detects imminent failure. Your hard disk is detecting an imminent failure. To ensure no data loss, backup contents and replace this hard disc. Attribute failed: 01

Initializing Intel (R) Boot Agent Version 4.0.22 PXE 2.1 Build 083 (WFM2.0), RPL V2.73"

The computer seems to be working fine right now and it cleaned the "about:blank" problem. I'm not very computer-smart, so let me know if this will go away or if I can fix it. If not, tell me exactly what I need to do to backup contents, etc. and how soon I have to do it.

Any idea what caused this? I was really happy with my computer before this and it still seems fine (except for that message at startup).

 

If it just happened the once, you might not have anything to worry about. I would certainly backup important data you want to keep, restart a couple times and see if the mesage comes back. If so, than replace your hard drive.

Good Luck.

 

I restarted it again and the message came back. How do I backup?

 

How much data do you presume you have that you want to keep?

Remember applications can be reinstalled, it is your files that you want, things that you either created and cannot get back from a CD.

Do you have any other media available, like a Zip drive, a CD Burner, another hard disk in the system?

 

It has a CD burner. I'm in the military and currently overseas with the computer, so I don't have any of the stuff that came with the computer to reload it with. What do you call that stuff--software or discs or ?

 

If you don't have any of the CD's that came with it, theres not much you can do unless you can find a computer shop or something that can...

A) Supply you with a new hard drive

B) Copy all your data to the new drive. Perhaps they could use Norton Ghost.

Tough situation without the proper resources. In the interim, if there are any files you cannot live without, burn them to a CD so that you have them.

As soon as you can, try to replace the HD, this will probably involve having to reinstall from your original CD's, so lets hope your system hangs in there long enough to do that!

Good luck.

 

The page here will give you a bit of information about the SMART technology that generated that message and what it means.