hdd SMART error: FAILURE IMMINENT

[werldhed]

Well fuck me.

Got a SMART error this morning when I wasn't even at my computer: Imminent Failure Possible and so forth.
All my personal files are backed up weekly (but I don't do a "complete backup & restore" because my backup drive isn't NTFS) so I'm not too worried about it.

My question is, what should my next step be? Do I replace the drive asap? Do I just ignore it in the hope that keeps functioning? More diagnostics? I'm getting mixed suggestions from various websites on how to handle it.

It's a WD 7K 8M SATA2 WD1600JS. And the warranty ran out 4 months ago. LOL fuck off WD.

I'm at work, so I can't provide any more detailed analysis atm. Just curious if anyone has advice on what to do next.
TIA.

[SoM]

get rid of it and get yourself a seagate sata

[AmIdYfReAk]

well, make sure all of the lines are backed up...

you can try and run spinrite on it and see what happends...

i've had a few HDD's where SMART freaked out, but the hdd was still good for 3+ years..

[werldhed]

Hmm...

I currently have two drives in my comp: one running XP and the other (borked drive) running Vista.

I'm going to update to 64bit Win7, which if I understand correctly, needs a clean install over either XP or 32bit Vista. So, if I'm going to wipe the drive anyway, maybe I'll just put in a new drive to do it.

New drive --> Install Win7 --> transfer files from shitty drive --> toss shitty drive in trash.

[AmIdYfReAk]

Sounds like a plan man!

[werldhed]

Yeah... but thanks for the advice anyway.
I forgot about needing to clean install for the upgrade. If I had remembered it, then I probably wouldn't have needed to start this thread.

[+JuggerNaut+]

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm