Tuesday, August 23, 2005
I have finally done it. Yes, believe it or not, I have accomplished something that I thought was not possible. I fixed my OWN computer. The big ticker is that I managed to do it without reinstalling XP. Yeah. I’m waiting for it. The applause. Wohooo.
Actually, I am rather computer savvy, and under most circumstances I can usually fix up the problem, or at least figure out what is wrong if nothing else. For the last month my computer has been doing the old “hang” thing. If you have ever experienced this, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You know, the open a program and wait 20 seconds for it to load, then wait another 20 seconds for the computer stop hanging, then work for a minuet on whatever it is you are trying to get done, and then hang again. Very annoying and very frustrating to say the least.
It all started about a month ago when I lost power unexpectedly. I do live in the great state of Alabama now, where during a hurricane there is no interruption is power service, but on a bright and sunny day, whammo, no power. Needless to say, the computer was on during this power outage and when I booted it back up, so started the hanging problem, as well as the apparent loss of one of my extra drives.
I did everything I could think of. I scanned for virii about 50 times between using the Norton I have installed on my computer and using the various online virii scanners. No virii. I used my trusty Ad-aware to scan for malware, adware, and spyware. Found many infections and removed most of them. Except for this nasty malware that would just not be removed no matter how hard I tried to delete it. It would pop up in my start up programs and no matter how many times I would remove it, it would miraculously reappear. I finally did a search on the internet for the culprit, and discovered that I had to use a handy program called Killbot. Killbot basically replaces the malware with a dummy file so you can easily remove it. That done, and ad-aware didn’t pick up anymore threats, however the computer was still hanging. I couldn’t imagine what more could be wrong with it, but decided I had better try a couple of different spyware removal programs. Surprisingly, it’s a good idea to have a couple different spyware detectors. I was shocked to find that after I downloaded spyware doctor that it detected 133 threats and neatly removed them. No hassle. In the end I actually downloaded 3 different spyware removal tools, but found spyware doctor to be the best, and it also has a few extra handy options added into the program. Spyware Doctor will immunize your computer against future threats and has a neat little on guard protection so whenever you go on the internet it zaps the nasty spyware before it ever hits your computer. Absolutely worth the money in my book. Alas, I still had the hanging problem.
Next step was to clean out the registry. Your registry tends to get bombarded with not only spyware, but whenever you remove a program from your computer it leaves trails of the said program behind. If you clean your registry regularly you won’t have to worry about the clutter and fortunately there are quite a few programs out there that will remove the clutter for you, especially if you are not comfortable fooling around with your registry files. I had a registry cleaner on my computer that I use periodically, however after running RegCleaner the computer was still hanging, so I searched for a better registry cleaner. I found a handy tool called Registry Mechanic, and after running it, it found a bunch of stuff the RegCleaner did not detect, cleaned it up nice for me. Registry Mechanic also has a nice little feature that makes it easy to back up your registry, just in case something is removed that wasn’t supposed to be removed, so you can easily use the back up. It’s a rather quick tool as well, witch is something I appreciate being that I’m the impatient type. All well and nice, but my computer was still hanging. By this time I was about ready to give up and had pretty much told myself that I would have to reinstall xp to get things back to normal, so instead of focusing on the “hanging” problem, I moved on to the problem of my extra hard drive. After a couple of days of fooling around trying to get the problem fixed, I ended up just scrapping it. Not to worry though, I don’t even remember what I had on the drive, it wasn’t a very big drive to begin with, and being that I can’t remember the last time I even looked at the contents of the drive, I came to the conclusion it wasn’t a big loss.
Then it happened. Most out there in internetdom probably don’t know, but my husband and I have been going through the he** of immigration. He’s Canadian and we have been trying to get him here. Long road it has been. Anyway, when I was talking to him I mentioned I was having problems with the computer and he suggested that I make sure that there aren’t any missing system files. I can say a lot of things about my husband, but he is quite the “EXPERT” when it gets to computers. I of course did not know how to check for missing system files asked him how I would go about that. I learn something new everyday. It was so simple, I almost feel foolish for not knowing about it.
Ok, here is where I’m going to explain what you should do BEFORE you go through the pain of reinstalling XP and loosing all the information on your computer. If you have checked for virii, cleaned all the spyware off your computer, and cleaned the registry and are still having problems you should really try this!!!
In windows, click on start and find where your c: prompt is located and click on it. (My husband said you can just type this in the “Run” option, but for whatever reason it didn’t work for me.) Once you can see the c: prompt type sfc /scannow and hit enter. A small box will pop up and start scanning your computer for missing or corrupt system files. You will have to pop in your XP cd so it can get the correct files and replace them. Easy!!! When it’s done scanning your computer make sure you reboot your computer, and find out if it fixes your problems. It did mine, thankfully!!! Also, just for extra, while you are in the c: prompt mode you can type in sfc /? And a list of options will pop up and show you some options for scanning at the next reboot, or scanning on every reboot.
Most people out there probably have a cd writer on their computer. I highly suggest you back up any programs and files, email addresses, and any other important information you want to keep periodically onto a cd, so in the instance where you may have to reinstall XP (or windows, or whatever OS you are using) you won’t have any troubles getting everything back to normal. As good as it is to have the option to return your computer back to when it was working properly, sometimes that just isn’t good enough.
Unfortunately I do not have a cd writer yet, witch is why I was hoping against all odds that I would not have to reinstall. I have hundreds of family photos on this computer that I would be really upset if I lost. I really need to invest in a cheap cd writer, or a new hard drive.
Well, that covers my missing weeks posting to this blog. I hope some of the information I have provided will be helpful to someone else who may be having some of the same problems I was having. Like I said, I’m no computer genius like my hubby, but I managed to get this computer back to normal and that is enough for me!
Actually, I am rather computer savvy, and under most circumstances I can usually fix up the problem, or at least figure out what is wrong if nothing else. For the last month my computer has been doing the old “hang” thing. If you have ever experienced this, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You know, the open a program and wait 20 seconds for it to load, then wait another 20 seconds for the computer stop hanging, then work for a minuet on whatever it is you are trying to get done, and then hang again. Very annoying and very frustrating to say the least.
It all started about a month ago when I lost power unexpectedly. I do live in the great state of Alabama now, where during a hurricane there is no interruption is power service, but on a bright and sunny day, whammo, no power. Needless to say, the computer was on during this power outage and when I booted it back up, so started the hanging problem, as well as the apparent loss of one of my extra drives.
I did everything I could think of. I scanned for virii about 50 times between using the Norton I have installed on my computer and using the various online virii scanners. No virii. I used my trusty Ad-aware to scan for malware, adware, and spyware. Found many infections and removed most of them. Except for this nasty malware that would just not be removed no matter how hard I tried to delete it. It would pop up in my start up programs and no matter how many times I would remove it, it would miraculously reappear. I finally did a search on the internet for the culprit, and discovered that I had to use a handy program called Killbot. Killbot basically replaces the malware with a dummy file so you can easily remove it. That done, and ad-aware didn’t pick up anymore threats, however the computer was still hanging. I couldn’t imagine what more could be wrong with it, but decided I had better try a couple of different spyware removal programs. Surprisingly, it’s a good idea to have a couple different spyware detectors. I was shocked to find that after I downloaded spyware doctor that it detected 133 threats and neatly removed them. No hassle. In the end I actually downloaded 3 different spyware removal tools, but found spyware doctor to be the best, and it also has a few extra handy options added into the program. Spyware Doctor will immunize your computer against future threats and has a neat little on guard protection so whenever you go on the internet it zaps the nasty spyware before it ever hits your computer. Absolutely worth the money in my book. Alas, I still had the hanging problem.
Next step was to clean out the registry. Your registry tends to get bombarded with not only spyware, but whenever you remove a program from your computer it leaves trails of the said program behind. If you clean your registry regularly you won’t have to worry about the clutter and fortunately there are quite a few programs out there that will remove the clutter for you, especially if you are not comfortable fooling around with your registry files. I had a registry cleaner on my computer that I use periodically, however after running RegCleaner the computer was still hanging, so I searched for a better registry cleaner. I found a handy tool called Registry Mechanic, and after running it, it found a bunch of stuff the RegCleaner did not detect, cleaned it up nice for me. Registry Mechanic also has a nice little feature that makes it easy to back up your registry, just in case something is removed that wasn’t supposed to be removed, so you can easily use the back up. It’s a rather quick tool as well, witch is something I appreciate being that I’m the impatient type. All well and nice, but my computer was still hanging. By this time I was about ready to give up and had pretty much told myself that I would have to reinstall xp to get things back to normal, so instead of focusing on the “hanging” problem, I moved on to the problem of my extra hard drive. After a couple of days of fooling around trying to get the problem fixed, I ended up just scrapping it. Not to worry though, I don’t even remember what I had on the drive, it wasn’t a very big drive to begin with, and being that I can’t remember the last time I even looked at the contents of the drive, I came to the conclusion it wasn’t a big loss.
Then it happened. Most out there in internetdom probably don’t know, but my husband and I have been going through the he** of immigration. He’s Canadian and we have been trying to get him here. Long road it has been. Anyway, when I was talking to him I mentioned I was having problems with the computer and he suggested that I make sure that there aren’t any missing system files. I can say a lot of things about my husband, but he is quite the “EXPERT” when it gets to computers. I of course did not know how to check for missing system files asked him how I would go about that. I learn something new everyday. It was so simple, I almost feel foolish for not knowing about it.
Ok, here is where I’m going to explain what you should do BEFORE you go through the pain of reinstalling XP and loosing all the information on your computer. If you have checked for virii, cleaned all the spyware off your computer, and cleaned the registry and are still having problems you should really try this!!!
In windows, click on start and find where your c: prompt is located and click on it. (My husband said you can just type this in the “Run” option, but for whatever reason it didn’t work for me.) Once you can see the c: prompt type sfc /scannow and hit enter. A small box will pop up and start scanning your computer for missing or corrupt system files. You will have to pop in your XP cd so it can get the correct files and replace them. Easy!!! When it’s done scanning your computer make sure you reboot your computer, and find out if it fixes your problems. It did mine, thankfully!!! Also, just for extra, while you are in the c: prompt mode you can type in sfc /? And a list of options will pop up and show you some options for scanning at the next reboot, or scanning on every reboot.
Most people out there probably have a cd writer on their computer. I highly suggest you back up any programs and files, email addresses, and any other important information you want to keep periodically onto a cd, so in the instance where you may have to reinstall XP (or windows, or whatever OS you are using) you won’t have any troubles getting everything back to normal. As good as it is to have the option to return your computer back to when it was working properly, sometimes that just isn’t good enough.
Unfortunately I do not have a cd writer yet, witch is why I was hoping against all odds that I would not have to reinstall. I have hundreds of family photos on this computer that I would be really upset if I lost. I really need to invest in a cheap cd writer, or a new hard drive.
Well, that covers my missing weeks posting to this blog. I hope some of the information I have provided will be helpful to someone else who may be having some of the same problems I was having. Like I said, I’m no computer genius like my hubby, but I managed to get this computer back to normal and that is enough for me!
posted by Dovely at 8/23/2005 05:10:00 PM | 
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