Question : SMART HD Imminent Failure Message - Believable?

Client (neighbor) presents a Toshiba Satellite Pro M10 S405 laptop that was throwing up many errors. Unit also has external damage in area of right speaker/hinge. Speaker is broken away and missing. Hinge mount no longer exists, but unit is viable as-is, if used stationary, and not opened, closed or moved much. So I agreed to work on it.

Diagnostics (and research here at EE) found dead RTC battery, bad hard drive, and one of two 256 MB SO-DIMM modules malfunctioning.

Upon replacing hardware, re-installing OS (MS Win XP Pro SP2, including all necessary drivers updates and patches), I am getting an error message from Toshiba's hardware monitoring application. This app. got installed with one of the driver downloads.

The error message is reporting an imminent SMART Hard Drive failure of the new (refurb) HD. I additionally use Belarc Advisor, which is also reporting a failure of the SMART Hard Drive.

I had originally tried a generic "white-label" 40 GB hard drive which didnt work because it didnt fit, physically, due to a lip on the drive that is not on the OEM. (Remind me to avoid Toshiba Laptops in the future&) Replacement FRUs are difficult to locate.

OEM HD model # is MK4019GAX, replaced with MK4019GAXB which is an IBM part number, but still a Toshiba label on the drive.

My question is: Should I believe this error message? I have 2+ hours invested in re-installing OS and software. Is the error message correct? Belarc says SMART is only useful when monitored over a period of time. (http://www.belarc.com/smart.html)

Is the error message being caused by the different Hard Drive? Can the parameters of the SMART monitoring be re-set?

Should I start over? If so, now is the time, before the client gets his hands on it.

Thanks in advance.

Answer : SMART HD Imminent Failure Message - Believable?

Yes of course you should believe SMART messages, and no, you can't reset them as they are stored on the disk. You also say it is a refurbished disk, so it is quite likely that it is reaching it's life's end.