Text wont appear on my pc

[KJxlynn]

hey, 

I restarted my laptop because it was very laggy. (kept freezing or slow down unexpectedly) As it restarted it updated as well, it finished and I noticed something strange. The text under icons on my home screen were black as well as blurred. I didn't think there was a problem until I opened apps/software/programs/games and no text appeared. where the text should've been there was a black line (vertically). please help, I cant do my work if this isn't fixed.

[WAWood]

@KJxlynn 

Sorry to give you bad news ... but a severely laggy PC is nearly always caused by a failing drive.  That happens because sectors fail and the drive controller attempts to read them, but fails, and retries over and over until it gives up.

To check for hard drive failing, if your PC is new enough to support UEFI, you can use these steps to test the hard drive: http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00439024

If not, you have to follow these steps:
1) Press Esc key repeatedly, several times a second, while rebooting the laptop. Do NOT hold the key down, just press it over and over.
2) Eventually, you will see an HP Startup Menu -- that will look similar to the image below ...

3) press the Function key for testing the hard drive (usually F2) and let it run.

Please report back the test results.