interesting problem

[yabadabapal]

My computer is dying. All of a sudden I am getting:

Hard drive is missing

Ram usage is dangerously high

Cluster found in hard drive

And my desktop icons say error every time I try to open

them up. Not to critical my main computers are not allowed on line

so I am ok.

I have never worked on a computer in regard to repair so this

is my big chance to take this baby apart and see If I can put it

back together again. It is a 8 year old laptop.

After being online for 10 minutes a message will read saying have to shut down. Now it says Critical Error!

I took it apart earlier and did got the hard drive out to look at it. Very exciting for my first time to see one from inside a computer. I cleaned all the connectors and put it back but same problem. Some memorable files that I could not open up were accessible by going to my email and then making attachments and mailing the files to myself

oops it soing downs see aya

 

 

Back now. after being shut down. Here comes message again

Will try new hard drive tomorrow. Be back soon I hope.

Its going down again

Happy New Year

[Quinn]

Really is time to do a good backup. Once done, you might give the hard drive a good scrubbing and reloading. Then go buy a new one and transfer over everything that you can. You've got your money out of it after eight years.

 

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[yabadabapal]

Thanks Quinn. Am going to get new drive today. I bought this little baby last year for 50 bucks from a buddy who had it for 7 years.

My first laptop! I never took it out of the office so a laptop is not to important but I would like to see if I can fix it as a matter of learning about computers.

[Quinn]

With very litte hassle you can turn your old drive into an external hard drive that uses a USB port. Then it will be very simple to transfer over your files. Tiger Direct or its equivilent should have the cables and connectors.

 

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[elkroeger]

http://www.amazon.com/Upgrading-Fixing-PCs-Dummies-Sixth/dp/0764516655

[russell_bynum]

My computer is dying. All of a sudden I am getting:

Hard drive is missing

Ram usage is dangerously high

Cluster found in hard drive

And my desktop icons say error every time I try to open

them up. Not to critical my main computers are not allowed on line

so I am ok.

I have never worked on a computer in regard to repair so this

is my big chance to take this baby apart and see If I can put it

back together again. It is a 8 year old laptop.

After being online for 10 minutes a message will read saying have to shut down. Now it says Critical Error!

I took it apart earlier and did got the hard drive out to look at it. Very exciting for my first time to see one from inside a computer. I cleaned all the connectors and put it back but same problem. Some memorable files that I could not open up were accessible by going to my email and then making attachments and mailing the files to myself

oops it soing downs see aya

 

 

Back now. after being shut down. Here comes message again

Will try new hard drive tomorrow. Be back soon I hope.

Its going down again

Happy New Year

 

I wasn't sure based on your description, but if you use this computer to browse the web, what you are describing sounds like one of the fake Hard Drive defragmenter/Hard Drive utility viruses that are floating around. They will pop up all kinds of errors saying that your drive is bad (or missing), and it wants you to purchase their utility to fix the problem. If that sounds like what you're seeing, Check your Start Menu to see if you have a new application that sounds like a hard drive utility. (Don't bother trying to uninstall it using normal methods...that won't work.)

 

 

Some of these things are fairly nasty and prevent you from using legitimate antivirus tools to remove them.

 

They're pretty easy to remove if you know what you're doing (boot to safe mode, remove the relevant entries from the run key in the registry, clear your profile's temp directory and temporary internet files, delete the start menu shortcuts and/or desktop shortcuts to the fake utility program, then reboot and you're done), but if you don't, I'd suggest taking the system to someone who does.

[yabadabapal]

Russell, what you are describing sounds like a distinct possibility that I never would have even imagined. Wow! Ok, Im going to get into this, and many thanks to all for your kind advice.

 

[yabadabapal]

Russell, it worked. Thank you thank you thank you !!!!!!!!!

and I ordered the computer for dummys which I qualify for.

I dont know how you figured that out. Thanks to all!

Problem solved, Mission Accomplished!

[racer7]

1) Read up on "safe computing" habits. Don't open junk you don't expect to receive, etc. Don't follow links that look too good to be true- the web has a very high per cent of cheats and scammers- all the scum of the planet are there in quantity.

2) Get 1 good security program on yours that covers antivirus and spyware stuff. Norton has become worthless junk that bogs down machines but Microsoft Security Essentials or some of the other free aftermarket stuff will do if available for whatever operating system you have (Windows Millenium Edition or what?)

3) Think about a registry cleaner. Windows has no decent registry maintenance function and will bog down in time without one. Uniblue, PCTools and others make this stuff.

4) Scrub all excess junk you don't use and learn to use msconfig to keep excess junk from running on startup.

5) Don't even think about upgrading the operating system on this old hardware - its not worth the $ and time. If you get to the point where you're thinking about that, just get a more modern machine. While they're not the fastest stuff, I carry a $300 netbook on the bike while traveling and also own faster stuff. Macbooks are nice if you like simplicity but a little pricey for what they do- though they are well built.

 

[notacop]

Russel, you're a genius. You offer a solution to a problem I now realize I suffer from too. I thought it was lack of memory size on an older PC. I gotta work on this.

Thanks.

[russell_bynum]

1) Read up on "safe computing" habits. Don't open junk you don't expect to receive, etc. Don't follow links that look too good to be true- the web has a very high per cent of cheats and scammers- all the scum of the planet are there in quantity.

2) Get 1 good security program on yours that covers antivirus and spyware stuff. Norton has become worthless junk that bogs down machines but Microsoft Security Essentials or some of the other free aftermarket stuff will do if available for whatever operating system you have (Windows Millenium Edition or what?)

3) Think about a registry cleaner. Windows has no decent registry maintenance function and will bog down in time without one. Uniblue, PCTools and others make this stuff.

4) Scrub all excess junk you don't use and learn to use msconfig to keep excess junk from running on startup.

5) Don't even think about upgrading the operating system on this old hardware - its not worth the $ and time. If you get to the point where you're thinking about that, just get a more modern machine. While they're not the fastest stuff, I carry a $300 netbook on the bike while traveling and also own faster stuff. Macbooks are nice if you like simplicity but a little pricey for what they do- though they are well built.

 

That's all good advice. One thing, though...we've seen a few infections of these "Scareware" apps at work. When we review the user's browsing history to see where they got it, we're seeing mostly legit sites. (i.e. They're getting these things from reputable retailers and internet news sources, not from clicking some random link or searching for Teenage Asian Midget Porn in Google.

 

I've also seen it outwit all of the major anti-virus/anti-malware packages.

 

Fortunately, it really doesn't do much damage, and someone who knows how can get rid of it pretty quickly. It's more annoying than anything else...but it can be REALLY annoying.

[don_k]

To add to what Russell said, I've seen corruption happen (a bit too up close and personal)from just clicking the OK button on a pop up asking if I really want to navigate away from "this site". I now lock up my software firewall before clicking on any such button.

 

Also, be careful how you type web addresses. I mistyped godaddy.com once and got a hijacker on my computer. From that point on it was anyone's guess where my browser would take me. I'd try to get to ask.com and instead I'd be presented with a page of camera equipment for sale, vacation resorts, or memory sticks. Clearing the hijacker was no simple task. Now I have some huge disks on other systems that I backup to and when I have a problem I wipe the drive and restore from a good backup.

 

There's my 2 cents worth and I think I just used up the one post per year that I seem to average.