Windows 7 Smart Failure predicted & unable to back up

Hello, I got this message today

SMART failure predicted on hard disk 4.
WDC WD6400BEVT-22AORTO-(S1)
BACK UP IMMEDIATELY failure may be imminent.

Firstly, what exactly is the significance of this? Can I continue to use the laptop?

Secondly, I am unable to do a back up as I get error message 0x80070001.

I'm afraid to turn the laptop off in case I can't reboot, desperately need some advice please.

This is my system info:-
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium
Version 6.1.7600 Build 7600
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name ACERLAPTOP
System Manufacturer Acer
System Model Aspire 5542
System Type x64-based PC
Processor AMD Athlon(tm) II Dual-Core M300, 2000 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date Phoenix Technologies LTD V1.05, 22/10/09
SMBIOS Version 2.6
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.1.7600.16385"
User Name acerlaptop\rodjanria
Time Zone W. Europe Standard Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB
Available Physical Memory 2.52 GB
Total Virtual Memory 7.99 GB
Available Virtual Memory 6.29 GB
Page File Space 4.00 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys


Thanks in advance, Jan

 

Greetings, Jan Scrivens.

You could very well be receiving image errors if the hard drive is failing. You might consider booting to a live Linux disk (such as Mint or Ubuntu) and salvaging any data you can.

You might also consider downloading the Data Lifeguard tools to verify that the drive is indeed failing.

One thing bothers me - why is that report showing "hard disk 4"?

 

Partitioned?:confused No idea. Bad MBR?

 

Hi, thanks both of you for the replies.
I have no idea why it says disk 4, because as far as I know there are no partitions. I only have one C drive.

What is a bad MBR?

I downloaded Data Lifeguard and it failed, saying it may be able to repair bad sectors, but failed to repair them. It said to send results to Western Digital but I am unsure how to do that. Here are the results. I would appreciate you looking at them for me.

Test Option:
EXTENDED TEST
Model Number:
WDC WD6400BEVT-22A0RT0
Unit Serial Number:
WD-WXN0A9901324
Firmware Number:
01.01A01
Capacity:
640.13 GB
SMART Status:
FAIL
Test Result:
FAIL
Test Error Code:
08-Error was detected while repairing bad sectors.
Test Time:
23:05:28, December 22, 2010


At the minute the laptop is still working OK, but I cannot do a backup because I get error 0x80070001. Can you help me here please? At least if I can do a backup my info will be safe.

Thanks very much, Jan