Drive Protection System failure

[Jose Verdejo]

I turned on my computer today and it started in safe mode, I restarted, it started again in safe mode. I ran the Compaq Diagnostics it gave me this error. After I restarted it was working fine in normal mode.

Is something wrong with my Hard Drive, and is it serious? If I do have to get a new Hard Drive is it possible to pass everything from this Hard Drive to the new one? Even Windows 98? I dont have a windows 98 cd it came installed when I bought my pc. Please help im such a newbie.

Compaq Diagnostics for Windows 2.25
Error Details

Error:

Hard Drive 1: Drive Protection System Test:test failed, error code: 017037001

Failure: Drive Protection System failure

Time of Error: 8:29PM 1/3/03

Recommended Action:

Replace drive.

Error Details:

Drive Protection System Status Bits = 0x0007

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Jose,
look at this document http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=lpv38847 . Although it is about HP XW workstations, it gives us an idea that you should really replace your drive.
About replacement: if you will find EXACT the same drive (same model, same # of cylinders, heads, sec/cyl) then you may try to copy whole drive image to new one using low-level utilities (sorry can not advise any). But generally you should reinstall OS and all applications :o(
Eugeny