Trend ChipAwayVirus(R) on Guard Ver 1.65

[SpiFf]

I have a slave hd that has gone from good to bad over time. Its a Maxtor 60 gb hd.
I first noticed that something was wrong when i couldn't format it because windows was using it for some reason eventhough my OS is on my other hd on a seperate partition. Then it would slow down my computer and then sometimes windows wouldn't recognize it. Now I can't even connect it to my computer because it won't get past post. It displays this message: "Trend ChipAwayVirus(R) On Guard Ver 1.65" and sits there with the option to press "Del" to enter Post and "Alt+F2" to flash the bios.
I'm hoping there is a way to scan my slave hd in command prompt using avast4 home edition.  I just want to recover my files from the hd, then i'll torch it.
Extra Info: I've done clean installs numerous times, but that was on my western digital 120gb hd. I got the maxtor 60 hd from my Hp Pavilion.  It has 2 partitions. I don't know what to do.
Help would be appreciated.

[DavidR]

A google search for "Trend ChipAwayVirus(R) On Guard Ver 1.65" returns lots of hits and it looks like it is some form of BIOS Anti-Virus program.

1. Boot your computer and interrupt the boot (usually the delete or escape 'Esc' key) to enter the BIOS setup screen and disable the BIOS AV.

Once disabled see if you can then see if you can scan.

2. Have you split the windows page file over two drives (I have a small 128Mb on 1 drive and 640Mb on 2nd drive)? So on my system windows could be using the page file on the 2nd HDD, if you have a split pagefile this could also be in use.

[Eddy]

Could also be an application or data file that is on the other drive.

Two things that make sure this is the bios virus protection:
1] it says Trend ChipAwayVirus
2] it stops before the bios status screen