Harddrive Iminent Failure

IS the hard drive in question using Compaq's SMART system? SMART = Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. This means the hard drive is able to tell when it is about to become completely defective. So, since this drive thinks it is about to die, you should probably replace it before it does so. If it is still under warranty, contact your vendor & tell them about this message, they will send you a new drive.
You'll need to copy off your data if you want to keep it.
Best of luck.

You have not stated what type of computer or hardware you have. Compaq has an issue with some of the drives they use. From the HP website:

Overview - Fujitsu Hard Drive Failure Issue
December 12, 2002

In September 2001, Compaq hard drive supplier Fujitsu confirmed a manufacturing process issue on the hard drive controller ASIC that may cause hard drive failures. The potentially affected drives were used in Deskpro (EN, EX, EXS) Desktop, iPaq Desktop, Deskpro Workstation (AP240, AP250, AP550), and Evo (D300 and D500) Desktop series products. This does not affect ANY Compaq Evo D510, D310 or Presario desktop products. Fujitsu initially stated that the issue was limited to hard drives built between October 2000 and March 2001. In mid-September 2002, Fujitsu re-evaluated the issue, and has now extended the potential exposure dates to hard drives built between June 2000 and October 2001.

Also certain models of hp pavilion desktop PCs were shipped to customers with the potentially affected hard drives in the U.S., Canada and Latin America.

Based on the information from Fujitsu, the issue may arise under certain conditions, such as 24X7 operation, high heat and humidity and failure to employ power save features. Compaq service and support has been working with customers to resolve hard drive issues as they occur on an as-needed basis. hp will continue to provide assistance to minimize the impact of this industry-wide issue, including capturing and confirming the reason for a hard drive failure and working with the customers to identify the most effective corrective action.

hp is proactively notifying customers of the issue and is prepared to replace any potentially affected hard drive.

Howdy,

Installing a non-S.M.A.R.T or non-standard hard drive in many a Compaq machine will generate that as a false message. The company has made available several BIOS patches to address it, and they are drive specific. . .

William

Howdy,

Installing a non-S.M.A.R.T or non-standard hard drive in many a Compaq machine will generate that as a false message. The company has made available several BIOS patches to address it, and they are drive specific. . .

William

Best Bet, Get Norton Ghost, make an image of your hard drive (all of the data on it), and replace the drive with a new one. Then just ghost the image back to the new drive, everything should be the same as before except without your error.

Yes, your HDD is going bad. Backup important data immediately via whatever method you prefer (copy to CD-R, another HDD, Floppy, whatever) or clone entire image as previously suggested and replace the drive accordingly.

If it's under warranty, contact drive or computer manufacturer for replacement. If not, get a new one. Either way, if you cloned the original, clone it back to the new drive and you should be set.

P.S. Compaq isn't the only PC manufacturer to use S.M.A.R.T. Other brands, including aftermarket boards use S.M.A.R.T. as well.

just my $.02

Usually when you get the Imminent Failure message, you're drive is going bad, and it's time to replace it before it quits. What kind of HD is it? There are utilities you can get to check the drive, like Fix It Utilities v.4, it can to a SMART check on the drive, if the drive is SMART capable, and confirm the status of the drive.

SMART Technology is used in several of the drive systems today.

I would recommend that you do an immediate backup of the boot drive. This is done as insurance due to the fact that in the process of correcting errors you can loose some if not all data.

There are several ways to backup that drive.

I like to use Partition Magic and a second drive the same size or larger.

Copy the partition to the backup drive.

If your drive is starting to acquire bad blocks it can rapidly escalate.

The drive maker will have a test utility on their website in the support section. Download this and recertify the drive. I have included some direct links to the most common drives.

Remove spaces that might occur during copy and paste.

IBM/Hitachi: http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Western Digital:
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

Fujitsu:
http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/

Maxtor/Quantum:
http://tinyurl.com/ie1h

Good Luck Lee