My mom needs help

[KR0316]

If this is in the wrong forum category I apologize. My mother has a Gateway desktop with Windows 98SE. That is all I know about it. Her computer has bee acting up on randomly on no specific program just any of them randomly. I ran the Nortons repair disk "Win Doctor" and it found numerous problems in the Active X Controls and I let it repair the problems on its own. I ran a standard Scan disk and it didn't find anything. I ran a Defrag because I was there and just did it because it had never been done. I turned off everything in the start except Explorer and Systray. The defrag couldn't access some of the harddrive and it recommended a "thorough scandisk" which I did. The scandisk kept starting over and finally locked up and wouldn't work at all. I restarted the computer and left it alone to ask you guys what you think. She used it last night and it kept getting the blue screen of death saying unable to write to disk "C".

Any suggestions as to where to go from here.

[Statica]

Seems like some sort of filesystem error on the drive. Drop down to DOS mode and run a thorough scandis, with surface scan, might help you ID any hardware errors on the drive as well.

Just a note, I think the general concensus is that other than Norton Antivirus, any other so called utility by Norton causes more problems than corrects them

[BFD Deadeye]

I agree with Statica. The Norton suite isn't that great, in general terms. The AV is good, but try to avoid running WinDoctor. You may also try running defrag & scandisk in Safe Mode. The reason scandisk kept restarting was because there were programs running in the background. You can also CTRL/ALT/DELETE your way out of all of the programs except for "Explorer" and "Sys Tray".

[KR0316]

BFD............I did control/alt/delete all of the programs except systray and explorer but it still kept starting over.

[Cricket]

Hi KR0316,

Screensaver turned off?

:) Cricket

[homer15]

run the scandisk in dos or boot into safe mode and try it there (press f8 while your computer is booting). scandisk shouldn't restart while in safe mode, and it'll probably move faster.

[Iman74]

Assuming you didn't try this, you did check for viruses?

[KR0316]

Cricket...........yeah I have everything turned off. I will try it in safe mode.

The blue screen of death saying that it can't write to drive C doesn't mean there is a hardware problem does it.

[Iman74]

Could be a few things, could be a hardware error or a software error, or even a virus. Bootup to a bootable virus scan disk just to rule out the possibility of a virus.

[homer15]

do a virus scan. if a virus got a hold of the computer and write-protected the drive, that could explain the unable to write to c error.

[KR0316]

virus scan didn't find anything. When I restarted the machine to do a scan disk in safe mode, on the screen that shows everything booting up it had a message that said it detected bad sectors on the harddrive then automatically did a scan disk but of course it isn't finishing the scan disk. I think it is the harddrive.

[Blakhart]

I would zero the drive, then partition and format.
A format is the quick way to get it right.
Then install your os and a different antiviral and utility, oh say Fixit...
Just some thoughts

[wedor]

Formatting won't fix bad sectors, if you start getting more bad sectors or have a lot of them consider replacing the drive right away, it will never get better, just worse.

[Statica]

Dont do a low level format yet, first find out your drive mfger .. then go to their website and download a diagnostic utility, and confirm that it is a problem with the drive. Some utilities will let you correct the errors .. remember that Windows Scandisk is notorious for passing off unrecoverable errors as bad sectors!!
also remember that most of these recover utilitites will clean out your drive! So backup backup backup....

By the way is this drive S.M.A.R.T. capable? Try enabling it in BIOS if u have such a feature, that will provide you with more details at bootup than you can trust with M$ scandisk

[Blakhart]

What Statica said about scandisk passing off the unrecoverable errors is why I say zero the drive. Zeroing the drive can not alter physical damage in any way, save for making more damage perhaps.

[KR0316]

Thanks guys for all of your suggetions. I love this website everyone has alot of suggetions and are alot of help.