Macbook Pro -"smart services failure"?

[conrad0011]

I'm a newbee. I'm actually asking this for my son. He has a 2008(he thinks) Macbook Pro 15". It shut down and crashed he said. But before it did it gave him a message that said "smart services failure". He thinks his hard drive needs replaced.
Can anyone shed some light on what possibly failed and what needs to be replaced?

Thanks,
A concerned and trying to be helpful parent

 

[conrad0011]

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I'm a newbee. I'm actually asking this for my son. He has a 2008(he thinks) Macbook Pro 15". It shut down and crashed he said. But before it did it gave him a message that said "smart services failure". He thinks his hard drive needs replaced.
Can anyone shed some light on what possibly failed and what needs to be replaced?

Thanks,
A concerned and trying to be helpful parent

 

[kjlake]

A SMART failure basically means that there is a problem with the hard drive and it most likely will need to be replaced. - That is the short version...

in some cases, SMART will report predictive failure, which means that there are some bad sectors, but the drive itself has not yet failed. In that case, the best option is to make a complete backup and then replace the hard drive. In some cases, reformatting will help extend the life for a little while because when reformatting the hard drive it will mark sectors as bad so that data is not written there. But in any event, I would replace the hard drive at the earliest opportunity.

Probably not what you wanted to hear...

Kev