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April 13th, 2004 05:00
Computer freezing during initial Start-up?
A friend of mine has a serious issue with his computer. He runs Windows Me and rarely uses the computer himself. He told me that on Saturday, April 10, his son was downloading Sponge Bob stuff off the Nickelodeon website and his computer froze. He's attempted to reboot it several times since and says that everytime the same thing happens. The Windows Me start-up screen does it's thing, "doing what it normally does." I, personally, am unfamiliar with Windows Me, as I run XP, but I imagine it's much like what happens during my initial cold boots. Then that small hour glass appears, blinks a few times and then freezes before he can even access his user accounts or log on to the net.
He contacted Digilink where he purchased the computer 4 years ago, but they want quite a lot of money to fix this (in excess of $100). My friend is unfamiliar with what's even on his computer as far as virus protection and said that Digilink never gave him restore disks because they had installed all of the software for him and his wife when they bought it at the store. Even if he had them, though, it sounds like he wouldn't be able to utilize them since the computer is freezing while it's starting up. I was at a loss for advice so I thought maybe some people who have had a similar experience might offer some inexpensive suggestions for my friend. I thank anyone in advance for him, as he is no longer to access the web........thank you.
ChrisRLG
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3.9K Posts
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April 13th, 2004 12:00
1) SpyBot Search and Destroy
After installing SpyBot Search & Destroy, first press Online, and search for, put a check mark at, and install all updates.
Next, close all Internet Explorer windows, hit 'Check for Problems', and have SpyBot remove all the items it marks in red.
2) Get Ad-Aware
After installing Ad-Aware, and before running the program, first press “check for updates now".
Click "Connect" and install all updated components available. Click 'Finish'.
Press "Scan Now", then 'next', and let Ad-Aware scan your drives.
It will find a number of "bad" files and registry keys. Click 'Next' again.
Check all found items, and click 'next' once more.
It will ask you whether you'd like to remove all checked items. Click OK.
Always reboot the computer between each program - both of these may find things that they need to have a reboot of the machine to clear - please reboot and let them finish .
Failing those solving your problems a post of a hijackthis log for the experts to advise.
HijackThis From Here
or one of these other links:-
http://www.merijn.org/files/hijackthis.zip
http://www.aluriasoftware.com/tools/hijackthis.zip
http://mjc1.com/mirror/hjt/
Important: Create a folder on the C: drive called C:\HJT.
You can do this by going to My Computer (Windows key+e) then double click on C: then right click and select New then Folder and name it HJT.
Unzip HijackThis into this folder. When you run HijackThis from this folder and have it "Fixed checked" it will create a backup file of modifications to use if restore is necessary. Then run, scan, save log, then in notepad copy the FULL log by copy and paste as a reply to this post and an expert with HijackThis Knowldge, will have a go at giving advice. Please note the list of experts names below, very few forum regulars here have had this training.
DO NOT FIX ANYTHING WITH HIJACKTHIS WITHOUT EXPERT ADVICE, most of what it finds you need for normal MS Windows tasks.
Known Spyware HijackThis fighters in DellTalk - If you are, and are not on the list please PM Me.
TomCoyote (of http://tomcoyote.org/forums/index.php fame)
YoKenny (Accredited Expert at TomCoyotes)
baskar1234 (Teaching Assistant at TomCoyotes, Trusted Advisor Spywareinfo)
ChrisRLG (Classroom Coordinator at TomCoyotes, Trusted Advisor Spywareinfo)
Tuxedo Jack (Teaching Assistant at TomCoyotes, Trusted Advisor Spywareinfo)
Yellowhammer (Trusted Advisor at Net-Integration, First Responder at Computer Cops)
tashi (Helper at Spywareinfo, in training at TomCoyotes)
therock247uk (In Training at TomCoyotes and Spywareinfo)
irelynmisses (In Training at TomCoyotes and Spywareinfo)
Texruss (In Training at TomCoyotes and Spywareinfo)
You could also go to one of the more specalist forums where more experts will be able to help.
http://tomcoyote.com/forums/index.php
http://forums.spywareinfo.com/index.php
http://www.net-integration.net/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi (Home of Spybot S&D)
http://boards.cexx.org/index.php
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/index.php
Do read the sites FAQ before posting, and advise your problem and what steps you have already done to try to cure your problem.
I, and the other hijack experts mentioned above, are in all those sites (and more) with the same login names. You might get one of us at those sites also to anwser your log, but other experts will also be available.