I was having problems with my lap top and decided to try and reinstall everything to see if it would help. The manual says to place the cd recovery disk in the drive and press f12 when the Toshiba screen appears. I did this, but before the reinstallation took place I got a message saying that "SMART failure predicted on HD 0:Toshiba MK3021Gas-(PM). The reinstallation, though, carried on normally after this and the computer, so far, seems to be running better. The problem before was that the hd was making a bunch of sounds (loud clicking, beeping and ticking when it was being acvessed) and the computer was running slow. Before doing the reinstallation, no SMART message ever appeared. I plan on doing some hd diagnostics but I was wondering if this "SMART failure predicted" message is possibly due to a problem with the physical hd only or could also be due to the bios and/or software. Thanks

SMART only deals with the HDD and whether it will possibly crash or not. You have been warned first with the noise and now with a SMART notice. You may be able to fix it with the manufacturers HDD utillity. Normally though when they start rattling you had best be seeing about replacement before it crashes so that you can save what files you have on it before it does IN THE MATTERS OF STYLE, swim with the current; in matters of principle, STAND LIKE A ROCK

Be prepared for a complete crash. Some reading here http://www.pcmech.com/show/harddrive/158/ Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.

Go to pcpitstop.com and run a test on your system. If it gives you the same message about Smart features being in trouble, better heed the warning and backup your data. Replace the drive.