10.4.3: "S.M.A.R.T. status: Failing" -- What next?

[BobV]

On my Ti G4 PB, running 9.2 & MSIE

I installed Tiger (10.4.3) new, out-of the box a couple of weeks ago, and it has been nothing but a growing string of problems. The latest is that Disk Utility shows:

ATA Bus:

FUJITSU MHN2200AT:

Capacity: 18.63 GB
Model: FUJITSU MHN2200AT
Revision: 7655
Serial Number: NH87T21135TJ
Removable Media: No
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Protocol: ATA
Unit Number: 0
Socket Type: Internal
OS9 Drivers: Yes
S.M.A.R.T. status: Failing
Volumes:
Ti G4 PB HD:
Capacity: 18.63 GB
Available: 3.42 GB
Writable: Yes
File System: Journaled HFS+
BSD Name: disk0s5
Mount Point: /

Strangely, neither Spotlight nor Mac OS Help can find any reference to "S.M.A.R.T. status" or "S.M.A.R.T.".

WTH is "S.M.A.R.T. status" ? And do I have a big(ger) problem brewing?

TIA!
BobV

 

[Satcomer]

SMART status is hard drive built check system. Yes it seems you hard drive maybe dying a slow death. You should back up now (Carbon Copy Cloner is a good backup program for OS X) before the hard drive really takes a dump.

 

[bobw]

Backup and replace the drive as soon as possible.

 

[fryke]

Yep. The SMART system is not telling you that you should do something to fix the drive, rather that it's dying. It's not something you _like_ to hear, but still you like to rather hear about it when you've still got the chance to back up important things.