Hard Disk or Virus Problem?
I have had a problem on my HP Pavilion ZE4600 lsptop for about a week. The machine is about 2 years old. SOME operations become very slow with a LOT of disk activity after a while. Acts like heat buildup but the fan cycles. The CPU reports normal operating speeds and I don't see odd things in the Process Monitor.
Each time I start I get a message that
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SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0: <disk type>
1720 - At least one driver attribute has exce3eded the manufacturer's threshold, please run Drive Self Test in ROM Setup.
Press F1 to continue.
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I do not find "ROM Setiup" and the BIOS setup is minimal.
I have looked at the S.M.A.R.T. disk monitor web site and then searched for the Registry Key and execuable it says would be on my machine. I can't find them.
I suspect a virus, but Norton doesn't find one. It seemed to start when I asked Firefox to use a different bookmark befoe it had located an earlier site. But that might just be coincidence.
Should I load and run AVG as well? (ie: two virus scanners on the machine at the same time)
Google has not been my friend in looking for more info.
Befuddled in the USA