Does "Trans. failsafe" EVER = new gearbox?

[mobilejo]

I ask because I had the error last night, after about 2 mins of driving. Turned off engine, turned back on and drove off and error came back. Limped home, turned off for a few hours while I read up some info on here and other sites and noticed that battery/alternator issues are often a cause of this error message. Knowing that I do multiple short journeys (about 0.5 mile x2 a day and that is all for days on end) I hoped that it was just the poor treatment on my battery causing this, so I went out started it up and let it idle for about 10mins to give the battery a bit of time to regenerate before using the autobox. Drove off after that and it has been fine last night and this morning but obviously it may be still a total failure waiting to happen and just showing itself intermittentantly for now.

Anyway, now I am worried - luckily I was prepared to spend £1500 on gearbox rebuild when I bought the car so I have budgeted for this, but that doesn't mean I want it to be the case.

Lots of internet reports have found the cause to be non-gearbox related with many being battery related, some being DSC units or even ABS units and what not. I don't recall reading a case where it was actually the gearbox causing that error, so just wondering if the OBC error "Trans Failsafe Mode" has ever actually been the result of a fault in the transmission which required a new transmission (or rebuild), and if so, how often?

Secondly, when the gearbox does really go, what other warnings accompany it? Mine works fine. Even in limp mode it would go into reverse fine and move, but when it was in reverse the mirror didn't dip and the PDC didn't come on so it was like the car didn't know it was in reverse. Now the error has cleared everything works completely fine…

Lastly, recommend me some decent fault code software to use with my laptop. I'm a computer geek so not afraid of complex software, just afraid of paying big bucks for it (might need to save that towards the gearbox!)

thanks