hard drive failure imminent

I am looking for some up to date expert advice from someone who has taken the time to fully research the "hard drive failure imminent" dilemma and actually knows the best alternatives from considerable experience on resolving the issue… I started to do the research a couple of hours ago and now realize that there are a whole bunch of options, some of them expensive…

First, about ten days ago, I encountered the hard drive failure imminent message, that one time only. The HD is a western digital 80 gig, 7200 rpm, 8mb cache, about two years old, partitioned to 4 drives, no defrags ever performed on it, exposed to salt air, and no noise (clattering) emanating from it.

I do have a data lifeguard tools floppy for the drive, but the floppy drive is currently inoperable and i have no intention of fixing that unused thing just for this. I have not run chekdisk, nor have I done anything of that nature yet.

What is the best path to pursue at this point in hopes of fixing/retaining the existing HD for as long as possible? Any freeware that would help? Of the costware, any recommendations of the best bang for the buck? Would I be better off to just get a new HD?

 

Hi keywester,

I'm assuming you don't have drive imaging software, most imaging software comes with drive cloning capability. I would get that, a good idea to have anyway, not just for this problem. It should be a no brainer actually.

WD has drive utilities for cloning - and in testing the state of the drive. That's where I woud start.

Regards - Charles

 

You need to back up your data ASAP and before you do anything else. If it’s the S.M.A.R.T. feature that is giving you the warning then take heed as it is supposed to be very reliable.

This bootable CD comes with WD’s hard drive diagnostic tool included and runable from the CD – no floppy required.
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Then run Chkdsk tests for both file and bad sectors faults. In My Computer right click on the drives/s and choose Properties >Tools>Error-checking and click Check Now and tick both boxes.

If you still see errors then buy a new hard drive and clone the old drive to it before it fails. http://partition-manager.com