[groch]

It depends. Lately it freezes within the first 5 to 10 minutes of use.

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Does that also occur if you run the clean boot as we tried earlier ? Methinks I will have to involve some Techs on this as it is definitely not malware related

[Essexboy]

Does that also occur if you run the clean boot as we tried earlier ? Methinks I will have to involve some Techs on this as it is definitely not malware related

[groch]

Yes sir

[groch]

Also, to answer prior questions: the last full system backup was June 2nd. Prior backups are overwritten. I will checkout other possible images when I return home Friday

I have never reinstalled Windows onto an existing system, but have done total reinstall when a laptop hard drive crashed

[Essexboy]

It is a relatively straight forward procedure .. Did I ask for the make and model of the computer.. I can't seem to find it

[groch]

Dell Inspiron 580. Service tag 58J2CP1. If you go to the Dell website and enter the service tag you can see the entire system specs. The only addition is the extra hard drive, so I have 2 TB of storage, 1 on board with 2 drives and 1 external.

[Essexboy]

OK here is the data for a factory restore on this system. But, backup everything you need first

Restoring the Factory Settings in Dell Inspiron 580 for Windows Vista®

Shutdown and restart your computer.
Hit the ‘F8’ button until the ‘Advanced Boot Options’ menu appears.
This process must be done before the Windows® Logo screen appears, otherwise you must restart the whole process until you successfully access the ‘Advanced Boot Options’ Menu.
Select the ‘Repair your computer’ option and select the correct language.
Make sure that you are signed on as an administrator; otherwise you will not be able to perform the system recovery on your computer. Select ‘Dell Factory Image Restore’ and click ‘Next’.
Select ‘Yes’, ‘Reformat hard drive’ and ‘Restore System Software to factory condition’ option and click ‘Next’.
Click ‘Finish’ and the process will reboot the computer and finish the process.

[groch]

Oh my! Reformatting the hard drive? It will mean a long day of reInstalling software that's not factory installed. I'll need to look at recovery options on my external hard drive using Comodo, correct?

[groch]

It should be the same process for windows 7 as it is for the Vista instructions you provided, correct?

[Essexboy]

That is correct (according to Dell anyway )

[groch]

Well, after returning to my home, the computer has running in the safe mode with networking for a week now. Is there a way in safe mode to sequentially turn on drivers and see which set of drivers cause the freeze. I'm just not quite ready to format the hard drive.
Thanks
Groch

[Essexboy]

We can do that with the clean boot method, by doing this apart from the graphics all else will be as for safe mode

Next we will check for driver conflicts

Step 1: Start MSConfig

Click Start, type msconfig in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or provide confirmation.

Step 2: Configure Selective Startup options

1.In the System Configuration Utility dialog box, click Selective Startup on the General tab.



2.Click to clear the Load Startup Items check box.
Note The Use Original Boot.ini check box is unavailable.

3.Click the Services tab.



4.Click to select the Hide All Microsoft Services check box.
5.Click Disable All, and then click OK.
6. When you are prompted, click Restart.

If that works we then use a process of elimination to determine which driver or service is causing the problem :
Re-enable half of the drivers/services and then test that out

[groch]

OK. Just so I'm clear, when restarting, is that normally or in the safe mode?

[Essexboy]

Once you have disabled the services/driver then reboot to normal windows

[groch]

OK. Here we go!