Hard Drive exceeded normal parameter?

When i boot my dell inspiron 530s, i get this message immediately before it begins to boot. " hard drive self monitoring system has reported that a parameter has exceeded it's normal operating range."
What does this mean?
I had windows vista on the machine before i began getting this error, i tried to reinstall vista but the OS wouldn't install for some reason, it had to do with the hard drive. So i temporarily installed XP which it has no problem with.
I really just want to put windows vista back on the machine or windows 7, but neither will install.
Any ideas?

Basically, it is telling you that the HD is expected to fail. I suspect that it's a SMART message. Personally I don't trust SMART and think it sometimes puts out false error reports. But it would be a good idea to back up any valuable data.

scrooge

How do i get around it? I just want a working copy of windows vista or 7 on it.

Z012495 said:

How do i get around it? I just want a working copy of windows vista or 7 on it.

go to the website of the harddrive and download (not sure what it called) harddrive testing software and run the test and see what it reports.

scrooge

I tried to get the software. and i tried to reformat and fix bad sectors from windows 7 on a different computer using a usb -> sata conversion cable. And it seems to finish okay, but when the computer starts the error still occurs, and i still cannot install a copy of windows 7 to the hard drive.

As mentioned you can usually get a free Diagnostic utility from the drive manufacturers web Site. You said you tried to get the software so I'm not sure if you did or didn't find it. It sounds like the drive is or has failed. How old is the drive in question? It's been my experience that once a drive starts getting bad sectors it only gets worse. you'll get more and more as time goes on and that drive will end up being unreliable. The diagnostic should tell you how good or bad it is and whether you should consider replacing it. Going into the BIOS and turning off the SMART monitoring function will likely get rid of that warning message. It won't make the drive any more reliable though, you just won't be warned about the impending failure.