[Sleepie]

Hi everyone.. found these forums after nearly scratching my eyes out from being out of ideas for this problem Hopefully you guys can help!

My laptop's been starting up really slow the last 3 days.. It gets stuck on the desktop for a couple minutes before Windows really loads up. It starts up at the desktop with just the wallpaper showing & no icons, and bringing the Task Manager up lists some processes with blank users. It's annoying, but I figured it wasn't that big of a deal..

.. until today. I tried to delete some folders off my harddrive after transferring them to another computer. They were around ~15-20 gigs in total and I thought everything was fine til I went to my Recycle Bin.. I noticed a few of the folders were missing but emptied it anyway (figured I'd missed the files when I was CtrlClicking).

I went back to the original directory but the folders weren't there, nor were they in the Recycle Bin.. Properties showed that they were still taking up the space they occupied (around 8-10gigs) & the folders still supposedly existed (only 5 folders I could see, but it said 8 instead).

I've tried the following things to "fix" the problem:
- Already had hidden folders shown, so I turned that off & back on
- Restart computer
- Shut it off for an hour or so & turning it back on
- Disk cleanup
- Defrag
- chkdsk, then chkdsk /f

The laptop came with Norton AntiVirus pre-installed, but I don't have a Norton Protected Recycle Bin. Or if I do, right clicking the Recycle Bin doesn't show it.

If anyone can help, I'd be forever grateful D:

Edited by Sleepie, 24 February 2006 - 01:26 AM.

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Hello, welcome to GTG!

Sounds like you have several issues going on.

First, I would recommend you go HERE and follow the directions/recommendations. If you find you have malware and you cannot get rid of it all, or you are unsure, create a new post in the Malware Forum. Be sure to explain in as much detail of what's going on with your machine.

As for your recycle bin problems, normally, files/folders of that size (15-20Gigs) would not go to the recycle bin simply because they wouldn't fit. They would normally get deleted straight away and you should have seen a pop-up message stating this and asking you to confirm deletion. Of course, since the recycle bin is normally set to a size (10% windows default) dependant on the total hard drive size, if you have a very large hard drive, then those files/folders could have been stored in the recycle bin. Why they wouldn't appear to be there and still take up space is a curiosity.

If you would like to try to recover the files so that you can try to delete them again, you might give PCInspector a go. It's free.

On an aside... I personally do not like Norton on any of my machines and it could very well be contributing to your slow boot problems (among other things of course). If you would like to try an excellent "free" antivirus program, you might give AVG a try. It is much more non-intrusive with a definite smaller footprint than Norton. If you do decide to try AVG, be sure to uninstall all Norton apps first.

makai

Edited by makai, 24 February 2006 - 02:45 AM.

[makai]

Hello, welcome to GTG!

Sounds like you have several issues going on.

First, I would recommend you go HERE and follow the directions/recommendations. If you find you have malware and you cannot get rid of it all, or you are unsure, create a new post in the Malware Forum. Be sure to explain in as much detail of what's going on with your machine.

As for your recycle bin problems, normally, files/folders of that size (15-20Gigs) would not go to the recycle bin simply because they wouldn't fit. They would normally get deleted straight away and you should have seen a pop-up message stating this and asking you to confirm deletion. Of course, since the recycle bin is normally set to a size (10% windows default) dependant on the total hard drive size, if you have a very large hard drive, then those files/folders could have been stored in the recycle bin. Why they wouldn't appear to be there and still take up space is a curiosity.

If you would like to try to recover the files so that you can try to delete them again, you might give PCInspector a go. It's free.

On an aside... I personally do not like Norton on any of my machines and it could very well be contributing to your slow boot problems (among other things of course). If you would like to try an excellent "free" antivirus program, you might give AVG a try. It is much more non-intrusive with a definite smaller footprint than Norton. If you do decide to try AVG, be sure to uninstall all Norton apps first.

makai

Edited by makai, 24 February 2006 - 02:45 AM.