Sony VIAO Nightmares

[nodnerb2]

Hi,
One of the crew here onboard has a Sony VIAO Laptop.

It gets an error message at start up that reads:

SMART FAILURE Predicted on Hard Disk 0: (this is then followed by capital Q 14 times, between each Q is playing card type icon with a face on it and then it continues to read) -(PM) H( the icon)Primar y slave.

Does anyone have any idea what this is?

If you enter the BIOS the choice of HDD's is limited to 39 none bigger than 170mb.

How do I turn off SMART Monitoring?

Next Scenario:

The Owner of this machine no longer has any of the software it came with( a messy divorce caused the loss). What are the chances of just formatting and installing another OS without major hassles?It has one of those Jog Dial thingies on the side as well so I guess the original OS will be customised to see this

The thing that really would like to know is what the hell happenned to this machine and what can be done to get it going again when she doesn't have the original disks

Thanks in advance

Cheers

Nodnerb2

A SMART error usually means that the HDD is going bad. Sometimes you can just turn it off in the BIOS. 'Disable' Smart Monitoring. I would take it to heart though and plan on getting a new HDD for the laptop. If you're lucky, you can still copy all the data you need off of it.

The OS isn't customized to see the "Jog Dial thingies", it's just a driver for the VAIO. You should be able to find all those drivers on Sony's website. So, installing a new OS shouldn't be that much of a hassle, just get all the drivers ahead of time and install away.