It's a minor annoyance around here. We stay ready. This place really runs on Duracell batteries. The
Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB is $85 with code but you will have to purchase a SATA cable. It's got a 5-yr warranty and has 930GB of formatted space for all your videos and music. And, critical back-ups.
I would start a support ticket with the OEM being that your computer is relatively new. If you have not already done so, you should also prepare your OS recovery disks as specified by the OEM. If not, you will have to purchase a recovery disk from them (around $15).
Upping your video RAM from 512MB to 1024MB (1GB) may help your Sims gaming, too.