Q2, errr. No. Worry thee not on that score. If you know or are prepared to get the model number of the hard drive, the manufacturers offten provide utilities to check the health of their hard drives. They understand that the one thing that is going to get you to spec another manufacturer, is the catastrophic loss of data on one of their products.
It is still a good opportunity to chant the mantra re: backing up your data, just in case... External drives are cheap nowadays and even if your whole PC were to die, you can use it on the next one, by simply plugging in to a USB port. It also gives a certain peace of mind
Conan