Being this is my first post in here, please forgive me if I'm not in the right place.

I have a Toshiba Portege 4010 that I bought used from Krex Computers about 7 months ago. Everything was fine - until about a month ago.

Now, all of a sudden, I have a glitch in my system. The onboard keyboard doesn't work at all. Most of the time I use an external one anyway - but even this is having problems. Off an on while I'm trying to type a menu will pop up on the screen and I haven't touched the mouse (I also use an external mouse though the onboard one usually works ok).

An IT friend told me to run HouseCall by Trend Micro and that seemed to fix the problem - but only for a day. I've got MacAfee installed, Ad-Aware, and other PC cleanup utilities. None of them help. He then gave me a new hard drive to try and said it could be a hard drive issue. I haven't tried this yet. I admit to being a bit scared to try that.

I'm loathe to spend $75 to take it somewhere when it may be something I can fix myself. I have built a desktop system in the past so I'm somewhat understanding of hardware. But I admit laptops are a new forray for me.

Any info is appreciated!