PC crash advice needed please

[devonwoody]

My windows XP computer is getting messy,
Difficult booting up, lock ups, emails lost this morning, said there was 4 in but then locked up and now have not come in on reboot etc. System restore will not go back a month or so before things got nasty.

I have got my Windows XP disk.

So any advice before I crash the sod before 10 am greatfully accepted.

Otherwise see you in the new year.

 

[paulm]

Hi DW,

Assuming you already run a decent anti-virus, worth as a first step cleansing the pc of all ads and other type of clutter, pop-ups etc that get picked up on the internet. Some anti-virus packages pick these up too, but because they are not inherently dangerous, many don't, but they do slow down your machine something rotten after a while.

Google (assuming you can get up and running!) for Ad-aware and Spybot software and install and run those to clean up.

Also worth running your Disk Clean Up utility which will be in your Start / Programs / Accessories / System menu, and possibly worth running the defrag utility also.

You probably want to do a full backup first though before any of that just to be sure.

I'm not a computer expert by any means, and there may be others along later who are better qualified, but those are the things I've found help with similar problems I've had in the past.

Apologies if you know all that already, not sure of your level of familiarity with pc's.

Cheers, Paul

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks Chisel, done the items you mentioned above and over the past hour I lost patience with my external harddrive doing a back up of My doc. There are 56gbs to do a complete back up.
I have around 40 gbs backed up from previous savings but thought I would make a new folder, but after one hour I see I have only saved around 2gbs.

So got the do nothing feeling at the moment :x

 

[TonyW]

By the sound of things it may be time to consider a reinstall of Windows - after backing up your data of course

Before that you may want to try cleaning up your system of any potential malware. I suggest you download and run the following applications:

http://www.superantispyware.com

http://www.malwarebytes.org/index.php

Run both separately from Safe Mode and remove all the rubbish they find.

It is also possible that some of the files are corrupt or missing in your XP installation. It may be possible to repair using the sfc/scannow command:

You will need your XP install disk - do not insert yet
Goto Run and type sfc /scannow when prompted insert your XP disk and be prepared for a wait while it checks for missing files and reloads

Hope this may be of some help

Cheers
Tony

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks Tony, how do I get to safe mode I have forgotten, is it F7?

 

[TonyW]

Tap F8 while system booting and select Safe Mode from menu

Cheers
Tony

 

[devonwoody]

Tap F8 while system booting and select Safe Mode from menu

Cheers
Tony

Thanks Tony.

I am still in back up stage of external harddrive, looking at the box it came in it states usb2 transfer rate 480Mbits/s.

Is that 480MB per sec?
If so something is wrong, after over two hours of using send to harddrive I have hardly made any impression of my docs. (which has around 48gbs)

 

[CHJ]

John, one of the problems you may be having with the copying.

Dependant on the method used to transfer to external disk, your computer may be trying to make a temporary copy set/image on your main machine hard disk before actually transferring to external drive (as it would if burning CD/DVD).

If you Main hard drive is full/badly fragmented or having other problems then it can't find room for the 45 gig copy.

Try copying and pasting smaller folder groups rather than dragging them.

 

[TonyW]

The figure on the box refers to the maximum USB2 transfer rate of 480 Megabit per second

Quote 'A megabit per second (abbreviated as Mbit/s or Mbps) is a unit of data transfer rate equal to 1,000,000 bits per second. Because there are 8 bits in a byte, a transfer speed of 8 megabits per second (8 Mbit/s) is equivalent to 1,000,000 bytes per second (approximately 977 Kib/s).'

 

[devonwoody]

So there is my problem just under 1mb per sec.

So I have got to find a way to back up only the stuff that isnt already on the external hard drive without watching the monitor all the time and specifying no to that question?

Chas I dont think it is going to the internal HD, but I understand what you mean.

Oh for the days of 10gb harddrives

 

[virtu]

Wondering whether you have the USB external harddrive optimized for fast disconnect or fast transfer speed. You can check that from file manager, properties for the top level of your ext hdd.

My preferred way to do backup in Windoze / Dos to external hdd is to utilize command prompt;

first make sure the files to be copied have archive bit set;

c:\ attrib +a *.* /s

then use xcopy command to copy files to external hdd (assuming from internal hdd c: to external hdd e

c:\ xcopy *.* e:. /s /m /c /v

you can check the switches from dos help, but basically /s includes subdirectories, /m copies the files which have archive bit set and resets the archive bit, /c ignores error messages, /v verifies the copied files.

(You can also make a backup folder to the external disk if you prefer and add that to the command; xcopy *.* e:\backup\. /s /m /c /v )

With this way you get backup which is not compressed but fully accessible the way you want and does not limit you to certain os or backup program. Also the copying speed is maximized as the backup operation becomes simple copy operation.

 

[devonwoody]

Thanks virtu, being New Years Eve I chickened out ot the operation in the end today.
Will print out your instructions, although to be honest I came to computers via windows 98 and never did a dos op in my life, so it might be beyond me.

However the pc has obviously got the message that he is for the chop because he has been behaving himself the last couple of times used

 

[OLD]

Try the ideas on this link that you have not done yet, I thought the disc repair could be useful.
http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/getstarted/speed.mspx

 

[RogerS]

Go on, dw...treat yourself.

It's New Years' Day. Go on! You know you want to.

 

[devonwoody]

My sister purchased one and she hasnt got any software now to use with it.

Ten years down the road from the first purchase of my PC together with software over the years means I can never join the scrumpy crowd.

But if anyone wants a good home for an older model pm me :wink:

 

[devonwoody]

Most peculiar my PC has behaving like a perfect lady today, not one answer back. :wink:

So letting sleeping dogs lie for a while.