Working on a HP Pavilion that continually gives the "SMART Warning" upon start up, indicating that a HDD failure is predicted. I've run a thorough scandisk, ran the SMART monitoring utility as well as other checks and find nothing wrong. I've entered the BIOS in an attempt to Disable SMART Monitoring, however, the cursor stops short (above) Enabled and will not allow me to highlight it. The PC owner would like it removed, any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

First, I suggest that it is NOT a good idea to ignore a SMART warning. While the potential sudden demise of the drive many not be imminent, there is a very high probability that it is a reality, and appropriate precautions should be taken, like making sure all important data is always backed up. Frankly, if it were me I'd just replace the drive! (SMART enabled has no effect on drive speed/performance.) Look in your BIOS for an entry to enable/disable it.

rac, In my post I stated that I found SMART Monitoring and attempted to "Disable" it. The owner wants to avoid the warning message and clicking the F1 key upon every start up. It's their PC, I'm just trying to please. I'm looking for a way to Disable it and the BIOS would not allow me. Thanks for your reply.

Sorry; you certainly did most clearly state that, and I did what I often get upset at others for doing -- NOT COMPLETELY READING THE ORIGNIAL POST! Unfortunately, though, despite some extensive searching I can't locate any other way to deal with turning SMART off and on. I do stand by the principal point of my response, however, and sincerely hope that you have counseled the PC's owner accordingly - for HIS sake!

rac, okay thank you again for the replies. I have advised the owner she would be better off putting up with the inconvenience. I've also searched and could find not solution other than what we agree on. Thank you.

Personally, I do not trust SMART and it does slow down disk access. I put my trust in regular backups and an Image program. I wonder if resetting the bios, or maybe a bios upgrade will help.

Darren: benchmarks show that (at least for 99% of drives) enabling S.M.A.R.T. has NO significant effect on driver performance. (Which means that the difference with and without it so small as to be almost imeeasurable.)