Hard Drive suddenly slow (not hardware problem)

[Beetle B.]

Hi,

I'm using Windows '98.

A little over a week ago, my hard drive started giving trouble. Every half a minute or so, the HD light goes on for a few seconds and I can't do anything in that time (can move the mouse, but not change windows, type, etc). Then it continues as normal.

It's much worse if I try copying/unzipping a large file . The same thing happens, but now the delay could be many minutes long.

Obviously, this means little work can get done (every time I save a large file in a program, I have to wait many minutes).

I don't think it's a hardware issue, as I have Linux on the same machine (on another HD), and can copy files to the HD Windows is on without having such problems.

I don't know if this will help, but the problems began around the time I installed the driver for my ethernet card (on the motherboard) and installed software for accessing Yahoo SBC DSL.

Ideas? Could it have something to do with cache?

Thanks,

[Cricket]

Have you scanned your system for viruses, spyware and trojans?

What kind of background programs do you have running on your system?

Do you have Find Fast enabled?

To scan for spyware, get Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy and run them on your system.

Cricket

[Dan]

while Cricket's advice is sound and would be my first approach to figuring out the problem, I would also try uninstalling the yahoo software to see if it changes back to what you are used to as normal.
running a program like regclean also might help:
http://download.com.com/3000-2094-88...ml?tag=lst-0-1

[james8547]

I had a similar problem with the PC at work. I ran AVG and it's a virus. It appends some garbage to all .exe .com files.

[Miz]

If AdAware or Spybot didn't clean things up, you might want to download CWShredder from http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/cwschronicles.html - download link's near the bottom of the page.

Reading the info on that page about CoolWebSearch will explain why AdAware and Spybot have a hard time getting rid of it.

One of CWS's symptoms is a massive system slowdown similar to what you're experiencing.

[Beetle B.]

I didn't have much time for a complete virus check, but did scan over half of the hard drive, including the "common" programs (Windows directory, Program Files, etc). I'll do a full search again later.

What is Find Fast.

I used Ad Aware but all it found were trivial about 6 ads in cookies (removed anyway). Didn't solve the problem.

I uninstalled the software that came with my Yahoo DSL CD. (All except for IE6 which it installed - I was using IE5 earlier). Any way to remove IE?

I'll try Cool Web Search, but I don't have much hope - most of the symptoms on that page involved IE. While a new IE did get installed, I don't use it (not running when these problems occur).

One last thing, I just recently noticed that I get the following icon on the taskbar when I have such problems (left most icon):



(if you can't see the image, try copy and pasting the URL - sorry).

Normally, tha's the task manager, but it looks "different" during these problems. I can't confirm that this always happens - maybe it's unrelated.

Thanks,

[GaryRouth]

A completely up-to-date double-check for your antivirus would be to visit http://housecall.trendmicro.com and let TrendMicro's HouseCall do an online scan. On broadband with a recent pc it shouldn't take more than 20 minutes.

Next time you see that redX icon on the left-side of your taskbar, quickly press ctrl-alt-del, and see if anything looks strange in your Task List.

If you don't use Task Scheduler for anything, disable it by opening the program, selecting the "Advanced" menu, and then selecting "Stop Using Task Scheduler".

You can also look for any strange entries in your Startup tab in the System Configuration Tool (Start/Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Information . . . and from the "Tools" menu select "System Configuration Tool")

Check, too, for any Internet-based programs that have automatic updates & disable them while troubleshooting. Windows Update can be enabled to do automatic updating also - if you are overdo for Security Updates, try a visit to Windows Update & get it over with. It will at least eliminate that as a possibility for the slowdowns. And if you prefer not to have Windows auto-update, you can remove AutoUpdate from the Add/Remove Programs applet in Control Panel.

Best of luck
. . . Gary