Possible HD failure imminent?

[Agent_matt]

I've got an old 20gb hard drive (the only original peice in my PC) and it's getting rather noisy and I think a new drive is needed. However, just wondering that if the disk is failing but hasn't quite failed will I get a gradual decrease in performance or will it just stop working?

 

[Agent_matt]

Nope, doesn't take too long to install anything. The PC itself is fairly quick (AMD64 3500, 1 gb of RAM and another 80gb hard drive).

When im working over christmas I think I'll pick up a new hard drive anyway and some RAM. In the mean time I hope this holds up for another 4 weeks or so.