Hard Disk Drive Failiure is Imminent

My sister got a brand new computer for her birthday which is a few models better than mine. She got it last october (2008) and for the last month or so it is displaying "hard disk drive Failiure is Imminent" and something about needing a replacement hard disk and F2 to continue to startup. This shouldn't be coming up. Is there a problem with this hard drive or is it a "false alarm"

even if it is a false alarm, you should take it up with the vendor and/or the manufacturer if you have warranty. make sure you save you data and have them either replace the hard drive or 'fix' the false alarm.
also, by documenting it, you will have proof that there was a problem with the computer soon after getting it. if you let it go, and the hdd dies after the warranty expires, you will be sol.

Hard drives are pretty cheap now days. If you dont have warranty and the manufacturer wont replace it then you can pick up a fairly big Hard Drive for fairly cheap off newegg or some other online store.

EDIT: this is assuming that you take the error for its word and that the hard drive will fail.

If its a S.M.A.R.T warning then the drive probably is failing, age has nothing to do with how long a drive will last. I had a seagate 7200.11 barracuda fail on me with less than 800hours power on time.