[davera]

I have an HP a1320n desktop computer running XP professional. The machine is at least 5 years old and has had many applications installed and removed over that time. I have had a lot of issues in the past with slow start up and with the hard drive just crunching away at start up for at least 10 minutes, stopping anything else from loading. I have no idea what it is doing, but it becoming very frustrating.

I ran TFC and then Malware bytes, but it doesn't find any malicious items.

F-Secure finds W32/Malware!Gemini but says it is stopping the program from running.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Davera

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I would go to START/RUN and type MSCONFIG in the tab STARTUP i would uncheck all the programs that are really not necessary to load at boot time leaving only the necessary ones like antivirus, graphic card, firewall ect. (if not sure of a program leave it on) saves your new setting, it will then ask you to reboot say yes, if after the reboot the problem is solved then you know it was one or many programs taking a long time to start at boot.

P.S. if you want to restart one of the program you have deactivated just go back to MSCONFIG to reactivate it.

Hope this will help

[Alzeimer]

I would go to START/RUN and type MSCONFIG in the tab STARTUP i would uncheck all the programs that are really not necessary to load at boot time leaving only the necessary ones like antivirus, graphic card, firewall ect. (if not sure of a program leave it on) saves your new setting, it will then ask you to reboot say yes, if after the reboot the problem is solved then you know it was one or many programs taking a long time to start at boot.

P.S. if you want to restart one of the program you have deactivated just go back to MSCONFIG to reactivate it.

Hope this will help

[davera]

Hi there. I gave it a try but it didn't change anything. The hard drive still runs on for four to 10 minutes while starting up.
Anything else I could try?

Thanks for your help!

Davera

[Alzeimer]

Ok if with the minimum programs it is still slow, then you should first check if:

- You have enough free space on your C:\ drive, a minimum of 10% (but 15% better) free space is recommended.

- Check if your anti-virus is doing a virus scan as soon as you start up.

- Run a program like ATF file cleaner to get rid of any temp files that might have accumulated over the years.

- Do a defrag of your C:\ drive

- go to start/run and type chdsk /r (notice the space between chdsk and /) to check and repair any errors on your c:\
Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message:
Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the
system restarts? (Y/N)
Type Y, and then press ENTER to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.
If your computer does not restart by itself (reboot it).

- Finally run a diagnostic of your Hard Drive, find the brand of your HD and download there bootable ISO file of the diagnostic tool
burn it on a cd, and boot from it, it will let you know if your HD is still healthy or not.

[davera]

Okay, I'll give it a try; thanks for your help.