Hard drive failure; How long do I have?

[simzebu]

A while ago I started getting an unusual mechanical noise from my HD, and some programs got very slow or froze when booting (fortunately not SC4 *knocks on wood*). So I ignored it for a while, and a few days ago I ran through an error check. It found a few errors, and fixed them. For about a day it was error free. The next day I heard the noise once or twice, but more importantly got an error message that said:

java.exe
Entry Point Not Found : The procedure entry point LocalFileTimeToF could not be located in the dynamic link library KERNEL32.dll.

But I haven't heard the noise again since then, and that was a day or two ago. So my question is: How long do I have until this thing dies completely? Can replacing it be put off for another few months, or preferably a year? The noise had been happening for a few months before I checked it out, so does that mean I can stretch it for a few more months?

Obviously, I'll be backing up constantly between now and then.

[callagrafx]

If it's mechanical it will only get worse.  Best thing to do is backup all your data and replace the drive as soon as possible.

[Andreas]

Yeah, better replace it as soon as possible. It's probably not too worse yet, but your data might become corrupted over the time without noticing it, and if you don't have a recent backup, you're really screwed then.

[simzebu]

Thanks. I suppose I should consider myself lucky for knowing before it's completely dead. 

EDIT: While I'm at it, are there any problems that I should expect when transitioning to the new machine? It'll probably be an eMachines with an AMD 64-bit dual core processor, 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 6100 integrated GFX, and, *big sigh* Vi$ta.  I know I've heard of some problems with Vista, and with dual cores...

[xxdita]

I'm running Vista on a DualCore Pentium (don't ask about specs, I only know it's DualCore because that's what the little sticker says) with only a few problems (mostly user error). Haven't had to change any settings for SC4 to work. I can't really say about other games, because I only play SC4.