CHKDSK and DEFRAG use after slow performance

To get defrag and scandisk to run, see the following:

http://www.djdenham.com/Scandisk_text.htm

Then try the following general clean-up procedure:

First, update your virus definitions and do a complete system scan for viruses.

Next, boot into Safe Mode (reboot your computer and tap several times on the F8 key just before Windows starts to load). Go to your Windows/temp folder and delete all of the files in the folder. Then, run scandisk and then defrag on your C: drive.

Next, get rid of all of the unnecessary programs that run from startup. To see how to do this and to see what is not likely to be needed running from startup, see the following:

http://www2.whidbey.net/djdenham/

for programs running from startup that are not listed at the above site, see the following:

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm

You might also want to get rid of any spyware that you downloaded and installed with along with free programs see the following:

http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=si_virus&message.id=572

After performing these steps you should have a pretty clean running computer, and, hopefully your problems will have disappeared. Let us know how this works out.

Steve

Steve

Thanks for the info and links.

I have run Norton Antivirus with nothing detected and have deleted temporary internet files and stopped all those start up programs running.

Scan dsk and defrag still don't run.  Scan dsk stops and restarts 10 times but gets nowhere.  Defrag chatters away but doesn't do anything.

I still have extremely poor performance and would like in desperation to format the drive and reinstall windows with all the Dell drivers and utilities.

Any further ideas or shall I dump the old machine?

Thanks.

Did you try going into Safe Mode and running scandisk and defrag?  In Safe mode, there are no programs running in the background that would interfere with scandisk and defrag, so I'm surprised this didn't work for you.

What programs are still running from startup?  Please go into msconfig and provide a list of all programs that are listed and still have a check mark next to them.

If you really want to reformat and reinstall then the following articles should help you do this.  Be aware that formatting the hard disk will erase everything on the drive, so make sure you have a back up of anything and everything you want to keep.

http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=TT1024679 

http://support.dell.com/us/en/kb/document.asp?DN=1026820

Steve

Thanks

I'll try safe mode first and let you know.

Thanks for the cautions re the format procedure.

Ran in safe mode and disk clean up successful,  scndsk ran and fixed a number of faults, defrag ran successfully!

Thanks for all the help.