[codys]

Hi,
A friend of mine has a pc with Vista Home Premium, 64 bit installed, he has been using a usb mobile internet stick to access the internet. He does not know much about computers so he asks me when he has a problem with his pc. I am no expert but I know a bit more than him.
The other day he told me that he has not been able to connect to the internet for almost a week now because the usb device was not operating properly,, it should scan for a network, and then show high speed network available(or not available), then connect, if network is available. What it does now is just scan for network and never gets beyond that stage.
I took a look at the problem and noticed that there are several other problems with the pc, when I try to bring up the control panel, it opens a window but stays blank for maybe 5 minutes and says 'control panel not responding' before it will show the icons.
Another problem is when I double click on an executable icon on the desktop or click on most programs on the start menu, nothing happens. To open the programs I have to right click on the desktop icons and then select the open option.
I have run the chkdsk many times with no success. I started the pc and pressed F8 to open the boot option screen and have tried the 'repair your computer' options,
start repair, restore system and command prompt options. All with no success. The restore system will not work because it says there are corrupted files and to run chkdsk.(which finds no problems). I have tried running 'sfc /scannow' from the command prompt but it says there are repairs pending and to restart the computer to complete them( but after restarting it says the same thing every time.)
Another problem is that I cannot use the run feature (in vista this is done from the search bar in the start menu) when I try to use it, as soon as I type the first letter into the search box, it says 'cannot initialize search'.
I have tried booting in safe mode but it only gets so far (crcdisk.sys) and then freezes.
He had AVG free installed and I think it updated regularly, but would not open for me to try doing a scan today, so I ended up uninstalling it to see if it may have been causing some of the problems, but it made no difference.
I apologize for this long disjointed post but I am not sure what to do next to try and help him. I do not know if these problems are caused by a virus or if there is a problem with the os. I believe there is nothing wrong with the usb internet stick and that it would work if these other problems were fixed as it works fine on my laptop. I would format his drive and do a fresh install but he does not have the vista disk,although apparently it is on a ghost partition or somewhere on the pc. Also he has an automotive repair program on there that is a pain to get reinstalled, so I would rather see if it can be repaired.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
TIA
Allan

[Advertisements]

That is rather long winded I agree. So you have tried System Restore? If not, lets try that first.

[diabillic]

That is rather long winded I agree. So you have tried System Restore? If not, lets try that first.

[codys]

Hi,Thanks for the reply. The system restore will not work because it says there are corrupted files and to run chkdsk.(which finds no problems).

[FNP]

codys-

Hi and welcome to Geeks to Go!

Let's try a few cleaning programs first; bloated temp folders and a fragged hard drive can cause some pretty serious problems.

Clear Cache/Temp Files
Download TFC by OldTimer to your desktop

• Please double-click TFC.exe to run it. (Note: If you are running on Vista, right-click on the file and choose Run As Administrator).
• It will close all programs when run, so make sure you have saved all your work before you begin.
• Click the Start button to begin the process. Depending on how often you clean temp files, execution time should be anywhere from a few seconds to a minute or two. Let it run uninterrupted to completion.
• Once it's finished it should reboot your machine. If it does not, please manually reboot the machine yourself to ensure a complete clean.

The next step to to run a defragmentation program. Check out this blog post to see why a fragmented hard drive can cause loads of problems.

• Download Defraggler to your desktop.
• Run the setup file to install the program to your hard drive.
• Run Defraggler. Select the hard drive or disk you wish to defragment, then select analyze to view the fragmentation status of your drive.
• Select Defrag to begin the defragmentation process. Depending on the status of the drive, this could take a while.
• When the process is finished, close Defraggler.

That should clean things up and give us a better picture of what else needs to be fixed.

I know you mentioned a problem with internet connectivity- you can download the above programs on a different computer and transfer them to the troubled system via USB flash drive.

After running those, post back with:

• How the computer is running (faster, still sluggish, etc...)
• What other problems you are experiencing.

[codys]

Hi,
I installed and ran both programs you recommended.

The computer is still acting the same way, the control panel is still not responding and double clicking on desktop icons does not work.

When I type anything into the search field in the start menu it says"search failed to initialize" as soon as I type the first letter.

Thanks for the assistance

[FNP]

codys-

I'd like to take a look at the background services that are running.

• Open the task manager (either type services.msc in the run box (not the Start Menu search box), or press CTRL+ALT+DELETE and select services).
• Scroll down to Windows Search.
• Is the service Started or Stopped?
• Is the service startup set to Automatic, Automatic (Delayed), Manual or Disabled?

Edited by FNP, 05 May 2010 - 04:41 PM.

[codys]

Here is all that is shown under services, there is no start-up column?

Name = WSearch
PID = 2876
Description = Windows Search
Status = Running
Group = N/A

also, There is no "Run" choice on the start menu.


edit; I just read this thread

http://www.geekstogo...up-t275741.html

It is about chkdsk running at startup,,another long time problem with this pc,,although not everytime it is started.
When I ran the "fsutil dirty query" it said "Volume - c: is dirty"

Edited by codys, 06 May 2010 - 09:10 AM.

[rshaffer61]

If what appears on the screen says Volume - c: IS Dirty, then please do the following:

Please check the following before proceeding:

• If you have Spyware Doctor installed, uninstall it.
• If you have ZoneAlarm installed, open it, click the "Overview" tab, then select "Preferences", and UNcheck the "Protect ZA Client" check box.

Click Start, then Run, type cmd in the Open box and click "Ok". At the prompt in the Command window, type the following commands, pressing "Enter" after each one:

Substitute the drive letter for the drive your want to check for the ? in the following commands. Please note the spaces.

• chkntfs /d ..... (This will reset autocheck options to default...will come back invalid on some installations)
• chkntfs /c ?: ..... (This will allow checking the specified drive )
• chkntfs /x ?: ..... (The x switch tells Windows to NOT check the specified drive on the next boot)

At this point, restart your computer, it will not do a chkdsk and will boot directly to Windows.

This next step is important as this is where the Dirty Bit will be unset.

Substitute the drive letter for the drive your want to check for the ? in the following commands.

Click Start, then Run, type cmd in the Open box and click "Ok". At the command prompt, type the following, pressing "Enter" after each one: (Again, note the spaces.)

• chkdsk /f /r ?: ..... (To manually run a full chkdsk operation on the specified drive)
• Y ..... (To accept having it run on the next boot)

This should take you through 5 stages of the scan and will unset the Dirty Bit. Be patient...this is a very thorough check and will take quite a while.

Finally, when the chkdsk operation has completed, type fsutil dirty query ?:, press "Enter", and Windows will confirm that the Dirty Bit is not set on that drive.

Reboot again and see if chkdsk still runs on startup. If the machine boots back up to the command prompt, type exit and press "Enter"...it should boot to Windows.

[FNP]

You beat me to it...

[codys]

O.K.,,I ran the scan but it still says volume C is dirty.

[rshaffer61]

Did you run all the steps I outlined? If you have and the problem still persist then you may need to run a repair installation on the system. Is this a name branded system and if so what make and model?
There would be a recovery partition on the hd then but in most cases this would return the system to factory settings.
You would need to backup all important data before attempting this. The recovery partition may include a non destructive recovery which would keep all existing data safe.

[codys]

Here is the system info;

OS Name Microsoft® Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Version 6.0.6001 Service Pack 1 Build 6001
Other OS Description Not Available
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name TERRY-PC
System Manufacturer Acer
System Model Aspire X1700
System Type x64-based PC
Processor Intel® Core™2 Duo CPU E7300 @ 2.66GHz, 2670 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date American Megatrends Inc. R01-B3, 10/12/2008
SMBIOS Version 2.5
Windows Directory C:\Windows
System Directory C:\Windows\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Locale Canada
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "6.0.6001.18000"
User Name Terry-PC\Terry
Time Zone Atlantic Daylight Time
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 4.00 GB
Total Physical Memory 4.00 GB
Available Physical Memory 2.50 GB
Total Virtual Memory 8.17 GB
Available Virtual Memory 6.78 GB
Page File Space 4.29 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys


Yes, I did every step that you mentioned.

There was couple of things ,,first, I have no "run" on the start menu, so I used the start menu/all programs/accesories/ and then right clicked "command prompt"/run as administrator/.

Also, when performing the scan, the computer was unplugged while on the fourth stage of the scan, when I restarted the pc it went directly to the scan again though and completed all 5 stages.


I have restarted the pc about 5 times since running the scan
and it has booted to windows everytime without running the scan.

[rshaffer61]

So the system is booting correctly without running the chkdsk everytime it boots now correct?

[codys]

Yes it has booted correctly everytime since the scan.

[rshaffer61]

OK now the issue with system restore. When you click on system restore are there any restore points available or does it automatically say corrupted?