SMART Status Bad

I have a Compaq running Win XP-SP2

Lately when I boot I get the following message:

Primary Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T status bad. Back up your data Failuire
may be imminent, Press F2 to continue.

I have downloaded the WD diagnostics and it stops at the beginning of the
operation and cannot complete (I failed to record what the problem was)

How can I fix this problem and should I replace the harddrive?

The problem cannot be fixed. The drive's self-diagnosis and WD's diagnostics
confirm that the drive is going south. Back up any valuable data and replace
the drive. The drive may last long enough that you can clone it onto the
replacement drive. If drive cloning works, it is 99.999% effective and you will
lose very little data. If you can't clone the drive, reload the OS onto the
replacement, then reload all other software and restore your valuable data.

If the computer is still under warranty with HPaq, contact them for the
replacement. If your computer has any valuable data on it at all, do not even
consider sending the computer back to HPaq to repair. When a computer is
shipped back for repair, your data is lost, plain and simple. You may even
receive a different computer back... Ben Myers

On Tue, 24 May 2005 14:11:05 -0400, "Brian Gotjunk"
<> wrote:

>I have a Compaq running Win XP-SP2
>
>Lately when I boot I get the following message:
>
>Primary Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T status bad. Back up your data Failuire
>may be imminent, Press F2 to continue.
>
>I have downloaded the WD diagnostics and it stops at the beginning of the
>operation and cannot complete (I failed to record what the problem was)
>
>How can I fix this problem and should I replace the harddrive?
>
>

<ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> wrote in message
news:...
> The problem cannot be fixed. The drive's self-diagnosis and WD's
> diagnostics
> confirm that the drive is going south. Back up any valuable data and
> replace
> the drive. The drive may last long enough that you can clone it onto the
> replacement drive. If drive cloning works, it is 99.999% effective and
> you will
> lose very little data. If you can't clone the drive, reload the OS onto
> the
> replacement, then reload all other software and restore your valuable
> data.
>
> If the computer is still under warranty with HPaq, contact them for the
> replacement. If your computer has any valuable data on it at all, do not
> even
> consider sending the computer back to HPaq to repair. When a computer is
> shipped back for repair, your data is lost, plain and simple. You may
> even
> receive a different computer back... Ben Myers
>
> On Tue, 24 May 2005 14:11:05 -0400, "Brian Gotjunk"
> <> wrote:
>
>>I have a Compaq running Win XP-SP2
>>
>>Lately when I boot I get the following message:
>>
>>Primary Master Hard Disk S.M.A.R.T status bad. Back up your data Failuire
>>may be imminent, Press F2 to continue.
>>
>>I have downloaded the WD diagnostics and it stops at the beginning of the
>>operation and cannot complete (I failed to record what the problem was)
>>
>>How can I fix this problem and should I replace the harddrive?
>>
>>
>

Thanks for that info Ben. I already have a backup of the files so it will
not take too long to do a restore