The motherboard only sees 512GB or Windows? I wonder if it's just a partition size issue.

Is is possible that the error message that the hard drive is failing could be an error. I've been waiting for the HD to go and it still hasn't. Seems like it should have by now???

Inland, I'm not sure which one it was... she has a 500 GB HDD with no partitions, so I thought the MB was the likely culprit.

zookeeper, I've known them to "hang in there" for some time and then just suddenly die.

Even before they go completely, they may slow down because of having trouble reading or writing. It's better to replace them when they're on the way out. Otherwise they may fail completely at the worst possible time.

Ok, thanks Draclvr and Jenny. I was hoping to avoid tackling this, but I guess I had better get on it.

It might be fun, actually....

Good luck!

zookeeper

You will pick some some very useful knowledge and pretty good experience! Good Luck !