PC is sick. Need help

[TammieO]

Happy Holidays everyone.
I'm hoping someone can help me. My PC is sick. It won't bootup. It gets past the Sony Vaio logo and Windows XP. My destop shows up, but the cursor and the hourglass freeze right away and it won't boot up all the way.
If anyone has any suggestions (even if it's just to tell me it's toast), I'd appreciate it!

[memorex88]

Step one, see if you can boot in safe mode.

To use a Safe Boot option, follow these steps: 1. Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On a computer that is configured for booting to multiple operating systems, you can press the F8 key when the Boot Menu appears.

2. Select an option when the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, and then press ENTER.

3. When the Boot menu appears again, and the words "Safe Mode" appear in blue at the bottom, select the installation that you want to start, and then press ENTER.

[Jon]

Boot into Safe Mode (F8 on startup, IIRC; or it could be F5) and try to do a System Restore to the last known good point.

Run any updates lately? Got the latest AV software signatures?

[TammieO]

Thanks guys! I'll say a prayer and give it a go!

[TammieO]

Marco and Jon, thanks again for your advice. I got it to boot and restored to the last known good point. Now I just need to figure out what went wrong. I haven't run any updates in the last couple of weeks.

[Jon]

Installed anything new? Downloaded anything?

[hard12find]

I recommend a good dose of Spybot search and destroy, I love that program. Glad you are up and running. Jim

[memorex88]

There was a big update 2 weeks ago. I would update XP ASAP.
Make sure your antivirus program is up to date.
Antispyware is a good idea too.

At least now you know your puter is OK and it's just software :D

[memorex88]

I recommend a good dose of Spybot search and destroy, I love that program. Glad you are up and running. Jim

Yes I have that and ad-aware (both free).
One finds things the other doesn't.

[TammieO]

Will update XP right now. Got Prevx1 for antivirus and will look at Spybot.

[memorex88]

Your on the right track :)
Good luck TammieO and Merry Christmas!

[pos]

I have been using windows defender for months and it does a great job, It's free.I also have norton antivirus, between both i get a pop up maybe once every three months and haven't had a problem since, i hope i don't jinx myself.
pos

[Savagebasher]

It's also a good idea to reinstall every once in a while. I reinstall 2k3 on my main computers every 6 months

[dsc_1972]

Maybe not your problem but I'm sure this is a worthwhile tip for anyone...
If your PC has been getting slower over a period of time - check your hard disk space.
Your hard disk 'C: drive' might be getting full. Move things like 'My Documents' onto a different drive. Simple things like this things catch me out from time to time... check it's space as well from time to time and don't let it get filled up with data/user files like photos! It'll grind your system to a halt if you don't manage the space!

[dsc_1972]

It's also a good idea to reinstall every once in a while. I reinstall 2k3 on my main computers every 6 months

Seems a bit excessive... but I'm no MCSE. Why would you do this?

[Tony-S]

It's also a good idea to reinstall every once in a while. I reinstall 2k3 on my main computers every 6 months

I sure am glad I have a Mac. :)

[Savagebasher]

Seems a bit excessive... but I'm no MCSE. Why would you do this?

I'm into computers a lot, even more than photography, and I move a LOT of files around. It's not uncommon for me to move 200 gigs in a week. plus over time, between applications installs/updates, games, just general use of the os will cause windows and the registry to become more bogged down.

[dsc_1972]

I sure am glad I have a Mac. :)

Why - is it raining?

Sorry - one helpful coment surely deserves another, and the opposite applies. (Newtons nth Law.)

;)

[3Turner]

It's also a good idea to reinstall every once in a while. I reinstall 2k3 on my main computers every 6 months


I would just defragment the drive or clean up house instead of reinstalling. I have only reinstalled when I could not get rid of a virus.

[canonphotog]

Seems a bit excessive... but I'm no MCSE. Why would you do this?

Typically, you would do this because you can't stay away from the seedy side of the net or you install all kinds of software from different sources just to see what it is or your friends send you all kinds of stuff in email that slips nefarious little things into your OS or you just don't take the time to run a firewall, anti-virus, trojan finders nor do you take the time to install updates or you are running on a 180 day trial version. Pick one.

I haven't had to re-install any windows OS unless a hard drive crashed.

I've even sucessfully upgraded a system motherboard, cdrw, dvdrw, etc. at the same time and the OS just took a bit longer on the initial boot up to load the appropriate device drivers for the new chipsets.

Windows isn't always the demon it is portrayed to be.

Ken

[dsc_1972]

Re-installing isn't fixing the problem - it's just starting afresh - so more than likely the problem will arise again! Unfortunately it's the typical answer from a lot of support areas... or as I see it - a 'delay tactic' - rather than fixing it.

[canonphotog]

Re-installing isn't fixing the problem - it's just starting afresh - so more than likely the problem will arise again! Unfortunately it's the typical answer from a lot of support areas... or as I see it - a 'delay tactic' - rather than fixing it.

Agreed. Unfortunately, many computer users really don't know how to re-install the OS and of those that do, many of them don't have their data backed up in a manner that supports a re-install without losing data.

[dsc_1972]

Data on the same storage system as the OS is an accident waiting to happen.

This is an education issue. People thought CD's would last forever, but they typically oxidise after 8 yrs or so and become useless. Digital photographers need to be aware of the fragility (that maybe is a bit strong) or risk of loss of their data and take appropriate steps to preserve it.

Bottom line - OS's get upgraded all the time - keep your data separate!

[pcasciola]

I also used to reinstall my Windows OS as often as possible, for the same reasons stated above. I'm always trying out different software which can sometimes leave DLLs in a weird state, and the machine just gets slow and buggy after awhile.

With my new machine I took a completely different approach and so far it is working like a champ. I'm running VMWare (which is free now) with 3 OSes running on top of my main Windows XP OS, two additional XPs and one CentOS (Enterprise Linux). I only have about a dozen of my most important apps installed in the host OS, and everything else goes into one of the virtual OSes. I also try to use as many portable apps as I can find now, and I've built up a pretty good collection. These apps do not install, they just sit there and run when you need them. No DLL changes, and no registry modifications. This portable app directory also sits on my 4GB USB flash drive so I have those apps with me at all times, and I can run them on just about any Windows machine even without administrator priveleges.

I think this approach will keep my host OS clean, and I can reset the virtual OSes back to their initial state in seconds.

[Savagebasher]

The problem with VMware is that the emulation is not all that efficient, and you lose a lot of raw cpu power because of it. plus you need the space for the virtual drives

[Titus213]

Hmm, I've seen re-installs fix lots of things. Like performance. Sure it's a delaying tactic but for folks who are not PC savy that is the best you can hope for. As software gets loaded and upgrade it often wants to embed itself in your start-up. This takes resources and if you can find a tech support agent who is willing to walk a PC novice thru deleting programs from the start-up via msconfig or system management tools I would be quite surprised. I have many folks who regularly come back to me for PC tune-ups to improve the performance or increase the capacity. Or to get rid of a virus.

[Titus213]

I also used to reinstall my Windows OS as often as possible, for the same reasons stated above. I'm always trying out different software which can sometimes leave DLLs in a weird state, and the machine just gets slow and buggy after awhile.

With my new machine I took a completely different approach and so far it is working like a champ. I'm running VMWare (which is free now) with 3 OSes running on top of my main Windows XP OS, two additional XPs and one CentOS (Enterprise Linux). I only have about a dozen of my most important apps installed in the host OS, and everything else goes into one of the virtual OSes. I also try to use as many portable apps as I can find now, and I've built up a pretty good collection. These apps do not install, they just sit there and run when you need them. No DLL changes, and no registry modifications. This portable app directory also sits on my 4GB USB flash drive so I have those apps with me at all times, and I can run them on just about any Windows machine even without administrator priveleges.

I think this approach will keep my host OS clean, and I can reset the virtual OSes back to their initial state in seconds.

Now this is an interesting approach, I like it. But it is not for the casual PC user....:lol: If PCs are strange VM is stranger....

[Broncobear]

This used to be recommended in window 95/98 days...i have xp on my machine and haven't reinstalled in 4 years. never had a problem.

with the updates and the restore points, if you take proper care of your system against viruses and spyware....I don't think you have to do this .

[rhys]

Hmm, I've seen re-installs fix lots of things. Like performance. Sure it's a delaying tactic but for folks who are not PC savy that is the best you can hope for. As software gets loaded and upgrade it often wants to embed itself in your start-up. This takes resources and if you can find a tech support agent who is willing to walk a PC novice thru deleting programs from the start-up via msconfig or system management tools I would be quite surprised. I have many folks who regularly come back to me for PC tune-ups to improve the performance or increase the capacity. Or to get rid of a virus.

I have a Compaq laptop. The wifi used to be a bit strange then I suspected a virus at work and ran Norton. Norton didn't pick up the virus and I suspected the supplied Norton antivirus was a POS (previous experience had shown that Norton 2001 antivirus was a POS). Thus I went back to AVG antivirus and found several viruses that Norton had been blithely ignoring. The wifi improved a bit but slowly degraded over time to become useless. After that and having tried more of HP/Compaq's fixes - none of which really worked, I found that reinstalling the wifi driver each time I wanted to use it seemed to be the only thing that worked. Well that was a bit too much fiddling around so in the end I made use of my Hyperdrive, transferred all my data to my hyperdrive and reformatted my laptop. I reinstalled the OS without installing any of the extra software then installed AVG and went from there. Aside from a dead battery - which was replaced free under warranty I have had no other problems.

In this case, a reformat and reinstall got rid of all the cruddy trial software, the dodgy wifi drivers and the software I never used.

The software I do use? AVG antivirus, AVG antispyware, Open Office, the stuff from the Canon disk, Thunderbird, Firefox, PhotoShop Elements 2, xana news, winaso and Borland Delphi. I just didn't need Microsoft Office trial edition nor any of the other crud supplied.

[CorruptedPhotographer]

One program, Norton Ghost.

It will take a snapshot of your system and save it to either a DVD/CD or seperate Hard Drive(could be external too). Upom any problems, simply load the image and it will restore your computer to that day. This is different from Windows Restore as Windows Restore will restrore certasin data and drivers and files.

[lungdoc]

I had a recent my-own-damn-fault virus/malware experience and I found these guys were very helpful in sorting it out - http://forums.majorgeeks.com/forumdisplay.php?f=35

They ask you to run through a specific set of steps, if not fixed you post the results from the tools used (like HiJack This logs) and the experts will get back to you with help. It was great for me, I was honestly impressed that people would bother to do this. It is not for a real novice user, but anyone with moderate computer skills and the ability to follow instructions should be ok. There's a few other sites that do the same thing also.

Mark

[Skip Souza]

All posts promoting Operating Systems religious wars have been deleted. Let's keep it that way.

[Titus213]

I have a Compaq laptop. The wifi used to be a bit strange then I suspected a virus at work and ran Norton. Norton didn't pick up the virus and I suspected the supplied Norton antivirus was a POS (previous experience had shown that Norton 2001 antivirus was a POS). Thus I went back to AVG antivirus and found several viruses that Norton had been blithely ignoring. The wifi improved a bit but slowly degraded over time to become useless. After that and having tried more of HP/Compaq's fixes - none of which really worked, I found that reinstalling the wifi driver each time I wanted to use it seemed to be the only thing that worked. Well that was a bit too much fiddling around so in the end I made use of my Hyperdrive, transferred all my data to my hyperdrive and reformatted my laptop. I reinstalled the OS without installing any of the extra software then installed AVG and went from there. Aside from a dead battery - which was replaced free under warranty I have had no other problems.

In this case, a reformat and reinstall got rid of all the cruddy trial software, the dodgy wifi drivers and the software I never used.

The software I do use? AVG antivirus, AVG antispyware, Open Office, the stuff from the Canon disk, Thunderbird, Firefox, PhotoShop Elements 2, xana news, winaso and Borland Delphi. I just didn't need Microsoft Office trial edition nor any of the other crud supplied.

I just did a re-image (dead HD) and while doing some research I found a little software package called the Decrapifier (http://www.yorkspace.com/pc-de-crapifier?) (I think). I was written and made available by a guy who got tired of all the 'free' crap Dell installs on their systems. It found one package on this 4 year old HP...

As to Norton - I think it meets the definition of a virus.:lol: With the exception of Norton Ghost I won't have it nor MacAfee on or even near my systems. They are worse than no anti-virus at all IMO. I use the free AVG. It works and you can't beat the price.

[rhys]

All posts promoting Operating Systems religious wars have been deleted. Let's keep it that way.
It's a crying shame that so many computers seem to be such virus magnets.

The only real answer as far as I can see to viruses is to have two computers - one to use for work and one to use for internet. 99% of viruses tend to be self-replicating rather than destructive so the liklihood of a virus affecting a non-internet connected PC is low. You could transfer files from one to the other using a USB memory stick.

I'm afraid I'm lazy so I use AVG antivirus and AVG antispyware.

[Savagebasher]

It's a crying shame that so many computers seem to be such virus magnets.

The computers themselves have nothing to do with it. It's the user's fault, not the computer. The user is the one who clicks the link or opens the attachment. They get the viruses themselves from being careless. I have 4 computers, one which is just being used as my router, none of them have an antivirus. Have yet to get a virus on any of them.

[CorruptedPhotographer]

The computers themselves have nothing to do with it. It's the user's fault, not the computer. The user is the one who clicks the link or opens the attachment. They get the viruses themselves from being careless. I have 4 computers, one which is just being used as my router, none of them have an antivirus. Have yet to get a virus on any of them.



Ditto! I also have 4 computers.

[rhys]

The computers themselves have nothing to do with it. It's the user's fault, not the computer. The user is the one who clicks the link or opens the attachment. They get the viruses themselves from being careless. I have 4 computers, one which is just being used as my router, none of them have an antivirus. Have yet to get a virus on any of them.

Hang on... My wife did an innocent web search and found a site that looked innocuous enough. It held the information she was after. The problem was that it was infected with Java viruses. Had it not been for the fact that I put AVG antivirus and AVG antispyware, the Java viruses would have pulled bigger viruses onboard. It's not just clicking on a link that says "Click me to see <insert name of celebrity> naked" or executing an email attachment without checking it that initiates a virus.

Viruses come in all shapes and forms - some sneak onto the PC via infected websites or via emails that execute their viral payload just by opening them. Don't blame the user for not being competely clued up.

[CorruptedPhotographer]

Hang on... My wife did an innocent web search and found a site that looked innocuous enough. It held the information she was after. The problem was that it was infected with Java viruses. Had it not been for the fact that I put AVG antivirus and AVG antispyware, the Java viruses would have pulled bigger viruses onboard. It's not just clicking on a link that says "Click me to see <insert name of celebrity> naked" or executing an email attachment without checking it that initiates a virus.

Viruses come in all shapes and forms - some sneak onto the PC via infected websites or via emails that execute their viral payload just by opening them. Don't blame the user for not being competely clued up.



You proved Savage and point. Because the user was prepared, you were not affected by the viruses because you had a solid AV app running. Had you not had an AV s/w running, it would have been user error as mentioned above.

[rhys]

You proved Savage and point. Because the user was prepared, you were not affected by the viruses because you had a solid AV app running. Had you not had an AV s/w running, it would have been user error as mentioned above.

I disagree. The fact that an O/S will allow a virus to install itself as opposed to user installation/activation is not a user problem. How is Joe Average expected to understand that he/she needs to take precautions? Joe Average just wants a computer that works and does his word processing/games playing/internet browsing. Joe Average has no interest in the mechanics of how computers work and so on. The very fact that there are 114,000 viruses that can attack Windows is a classic example of just how many Joe Averages there are. Given that so many users are Joe Average, the fact that he does not know to implement firewall/antivirus/antispyware is not his fault.

My personal feeling about virusses etc is that as all internet traffic passes through ISPs, the ISPs should be detecting and deleting all viruses rather than simply letting them pass as webpages or email messages etc.

[Skip Souza]

My personal feeling about virusses etc is that as all internet traffic passes through ISPs, the ISPs should be detecting and deleting all viruses rather than simply letting them pass as webpages or email messages etc.
Now that is an interesting concept. It makes way too much sense to ever be implemented :rolleyes:

TammieO, did you get your computer back up and running properly? What was the problem?

[Savagebasher]

It would be way too hard and time consuming to monitor ALL internet activity. Plus, new viruses come out all the time. They are not always marked "OH LOOK AT ME I AM A VIRUS". They are packets of 0's and 1's, just a pure data stream. Monitoring and sorting every packet would also increase latency by an enormous amount as well.

[rhys]

It would be way too hard and time consuming to monitor ALL internet activity. Plus, new viruses come out all the time. They are not always marked "OH LOOK AT ME I AM A VIRUS". They are packets of 0's and 1's, just a pure data stream. Monitoring and sorting every packet would also increase latency by an enormous amount as well.

In a sense, I am an ISP. I have my own mailserver and website. I don't run the antispam filters available - purely because I don't get any spam. Only a select few know my email address. The rest know my free webmail addresses.

I do provide free email accounts to a select few people who use my mailserver. Should anybody get too bothered by spam (thus far nobody gets any) then I shall implement the spam filters. It doesn't take much extra resources, doesn't cost extra but the only reason I haven't is because I can't be bothered since there's no reason at the moment.

[Savagebasher]

You stated that they should moniter ALL internet traffic, not just email. Email is less than 5% of all internet traffic, and is static. It sits on the server until the client retrieves it, so there isn't a problem scanning the static files.

[Graphyfotoz]

My computer took a wicked dump on me about 4 months ago.
Spybot.....AVG.....nothing I tried would fix it.
Turned out I had a ton of Malware and 2 Trojans Spybot or nothing would get rid of.
Guy on another message forum recommended this PREVX1....low and behold it fixed EVERYTHING the 1st time I ran it.
Including the Trojans!!
Now I wouldn't live without it!!
I run this and AVG 24/7 and NEVER have any troubles of any kind.

http://www.prevx.com

[rhys]

You stated that they should moniter ALL internet traffic, not just email. Email is less than 5% of all internet traffic, and is static. It sits on the server until the client retrieves it, so there isn't a problem scanning the static files.

Yes. But as a virtual ISP I control only email. People use my email services but don't pay to dial-up to my server. They just get their email via my server.

[CorruptedPhotographer]

I disagree. The fact that an O/S will allow a virus to install itself as opposed to user installation/activation is not a user problem. How is Joe Average expected to understand that he/she needs to take precautions? Joe Average just wants a computer that works and does his word processing/games playing/internet browsing. Joe Average has no interest in the mechanics of how computers work and so on. The very fact that there are 114,000 viruses that can attack Windows is a classic example of just how many Joe Averages there are. Given that so many users are Joe Average, the fact that he does not know to implement firewall/antivirus/antispyware is not his fault.




Joe Average needs to elevate to Joe not-so-average-anymore user because, buyer beware right? Very common in the US, also the law does not protect the ignorant.
Joe average doesnt have to be a technician at Cisco Systems, but at least realize the potentials of using the internet. Dont we read the manual before using our chainsaws?

[bwolford]

I don't know anyone who reinstalls their OS on a regular basis. Been in IT for 25 years.

Brice

[Savagebasher]

I don't know anyone who reinstalls their OS on a regular basis. Been in IT for 25 years.

Brice

You do now.

[August 15 Photography]

Buy a Mac.................Sorry not really helpful, just had to throw that in there :) Good luck.

[CorruptedPhotographer]

Buy a Mac.................Sorry not really helpful, just had to throw that in there :) Good luck.



Why put a bandaid on a wound? ;)

[bwolford]

I thought I'd see that response as I was typing. :)

Brice