Hello all!

It is me again coming to you in need of assitance now with my HP pavillion Laptop and some issues I am having. First off...

My laptop will no longer recognize some USB devices. My external Hard drive and my External DVD burner/drive. And it just happened out of the blue. Does anyone know of a solution that can fix this?

Second

I am getting this error when ever I boot it up: SMART Hard Drive detects imminent failure. Your hard disk drive is detecting an imminent failure. To ensure no data loss, backup contents and replace this hard disk.

I ran a test an everything passed and does everytime. But I still get this error EVERY time I boot up my laptop. I have backed up everything that was on it as well. I was thinking of wiping the HARD DRIVE to see if that will work but figured I would try to get some assistance here on the charts first. So again please any advice will help.

Thanks in advance!

Virus?

You probably have some SMART value over some threshold so it sends you a warning, but until you check you can't be sure (there is free SMART reader software).
As for the USB issue, if it is all USB devices it is probably your windows install that is screwed (perhaps due to the harddrive failing). If it is just certain devices, open your device manager and open one of the trees (+), Plug in your USB device and see if it refreshes the view (i think it closes all trees, but don't quote me on that).

If you can find the device in the list but not in the 'my computer' thing, they probably just lack a proper drive letter.
You can fix that from the "disk management" tool (right click my computer->manage , it should be in the menu in the left under 'storage') if you see your device there you can right click and choose to change drive letter (this applies if it has no letter)

Hope it helps, cheers

I hope it isn't a virus NiKKoM

And okay Bajablo do you know where I can find the SMART reader software? And with the USB devices I will give that a try when I get off tonight thanks!

Here you go sir: http://www.passmark.com/products/diskcheckup.htm

Very small and easy program, run it and click your disk in the top, choose the tab you want to watch (there is tests also, but they do strain your HDD, could be bad if it is on the brink of crashing).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.M.A.R.T.#Known_ATA_S.M.A.R.T._attributes

check that link for known smart values from vendors. Check the red-marked ones values on your HDD, if they are over threshold your drive is probably kind of busted and may crash.

Can almost garuante that it isn't a virus. If you do want to check if you have some shit going on you can allways run superantispyware, good program for finding trojans and other pesky stuff (it will find everything though, it will complain that you have information in web-cookies etc. even though it is normal behaviour. It can be used for tracking you and sending you targeted advertisment, google does that i.e.)

http://www.superantispyware.com/downloadfile.html?productid=SUPERANTISPYWAREFREE    be warned, the site looks like a fraud page, but it is a legit program and is very good, use it professionally to clean infected computers somtimes. just be sure to un-check the addon shit during the installation ;) it is free afterall

If you see a SMART error, you just need to replace the drive. It may not have failed yet, but it probably will. I would not mirror/clone the current drive to the new drive, since there could be bad sectors on the drive, which could result in corrupt OS files after cloning the disk. Install a new drive, reinstall Windows using the factory installation disks, install the hardware drivers from the factory drivers CD or website, copy your backed up data to the new drive and reinstall your programs.