SMART error on internal hard disk

Hello - I wonder if anyone could offer any advice on this.

I've got a 400gb seagate internal pata drive, running on an xp sp2 system. I use the drive principally to store audio files, and its set as the slave on the same cable my main drive uses.

A couple of days ago the pc rebooted itself when I wasn't about - on checking the event viewer there seems to have been a problem accessing this drive, and now on rebooting I get a SMART warning about imminent disk failure - back up and replace. Likewise, running the seagate diagnostic tool from their site indicates a problem with it.

Presumably there's no way round this? I can't fix it, but have to bite the bullet and buy a replacement? This is painful, especially since the disk seems to be functioning ok. Anything else I should check first?

It's a couple of years old, and I've no receipt (bought from computer fair) but I could investigate the warranty - however I'll still need something to transfer the files too before I send it off.

I'm planning to buy or build a new rig in the spring, so I'm reluctant to buy another pata drive, but my current motherboard doesn't support sata. Therefore I'm considering an external drive, 500gb, that I can move the music files on to, and continue to use with the new PC. Does this make sense?

Does anyone have any recomendations with regard external drives? It'll be connected and on pretty much 24/7, so I want something silent and enduring.

Possibly like this Freecom one (sorry can't post a link due to membership regs, but it's a silver 500gb one, £80 on amazon) ? It's more expensive than some of the others, but might be worth the investment?

By an Akasa dual IDE/SATA housing - put a SATA drive in it - and then you have a backup solution and SATA drive for your new system.

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK
(also available in black!)

Computer hardware and software at amazing prices, available online from Scan Computers UK

Ah, that's good thinking - I'll investigate the links.

Thanks for your help!

What is the smart error that's recorded? You should be able to read this with the internal tools.

No, there's not much of a clue with the error message. The message on boot-up is just a generic one about an imminent fault, and SeaTools just returns a 'fail', without any specific explanation, and Lifeguard Diagnostics quits the test with an unexplained error.

Possibly there's an other app I could check it with?

As an afterthought - the Akasa is fanless, so it is quiet, and if you get the dual IDE/SATA version (slightly more expensive than SATA only) you can put any old IDE drive in it as a back up storage when you move the SATA drive out. (Oh yes, it also has an ESata interface - but only when using a SATA drive)

Thanks for your comments folks.

I've gone ahead and ordered the AKASA P2 Series enclosure (both sata and pata internal connections, and e-sata and usb external), plus a samsung 500gb sata drive. This came to a bit more than I'd been planning to spend (and more than the Freecom external drive), but I thought it would enable me to add the drive internally when I sort out the finances for a new PC, and leave me with a pretty flexible enclosure which is likely to come in handy at some point.

I've disabled the problem drive until the new one arrives and I can (hopefully) transfer the data across.

And just to mention, should anyone be interested - the Akasa case seems good. It's a bit of a squeeze getting the cabling in, as it it's barely bigger than the drive itself, plus the blue light on the front is too bright and intrusive my liking (can be unplugged if you open it up though) however it's silent, gets warmish when being heavily accessed but not in any way problematically so, and the speeds (even on USB) seem better than my old Freecom external drive.

Scan delivery was very fast and efficient.

Thanks again for the advice.

In the Words of Basil Fawlty "A satisfied customer - we should have him stuffed" :)

Seriously - glad you got a solution that meets both your requirements and expectations!