<looks pitiful> I need help, I think...

Just today, my computer started giving me problems.

FIRSTLY - I was uploading files and trying to reduce the size of an animation, when my computer seized up. I could not tab between applications, and I could not even move the mouse cursor. Okay, this isn't unusual... (Pentium III, Windows 98, it happens.)

SECONDLY - when I switched off... the computer took rather a long time to boot up. In fact, it seemed to "hang"... It got to the point where it had done its automatic virus scan thing, said it was OK, and then nothing seemed to happen. I restarted again after waiting for 5 minutes... It kept hanging, not always at the same spot. I tried and tried... thought the computer might have gotten too hot, so I let it wait for a while... until...

THIRDLY - I tried again, and the computer said it couldn't boot up, that it couldn't find the Primary Master and the Primary Slave. I switched off again, tried again, same thing. Once more, and this time it was back to the hanging thing of my second point. (That is, it found the Primary Master and Primary Slave this time.)

FOURTHLY - I finally just let it take its time starting... I don't know how long it was, but it was ... a long time... It started up. BUT...

FIFTHLY - every single process has been taking forever to occur. If I try to open my email, it's agonising waiting for it all to happen. Opening Word for Windows is painful.

I did a Virus Scan (Symantec Anti-Virus), and it was fine. I can't see any ad things, either.

As far as new apps go, I have recently installed PestPatrol.

Any help, anyone? (And this is also a warning that if I suddenly disappear, it's because I'll be getting the computer fixed... although WHEN is a problem... The guy who built my computer is an hour away, which isn't practical on weekdays when I work... and he's not there on weekends... so it may be a case of getting a day off. Oh joy. That's right, lose a day's wages because my computer has a personality problem...) So posted help will be really gratefully accepted, since I'm going through some - shall we say DIFFICULT - financial times at present...

UPDATE: Whatever it is, it's happening right at the start when it's looking for drive C. <wail> This is not good, is it? Is it?

EMAIL HELP: If anyone wishes to get in touch with me while this agony is going on, it's best to use my hotmail address since that's the only one I can access (very quickly, so as not to waste work time) at work. Or if I'm driven to booking times at libraries to access my emails, it'll have to be hotmail there too.

The email address is soundssublime@hotmail.com.

I'll have to ask how old your system is Al? Usually, when the computer has difficulty detecting drives then something's up with the bootstrap process, which takes place during computer boot up. To fix this, you would normally perform a firmware upgrade ( upgrade the drivers for your motherboard ), unfortunately one should not attempt this unless they're experienced technicians, as making a mistake will render your computer completely useless. So you would probably have to wait and get the guy who built it in the first place. This is just a guess though, so you should mention to him whenever you see him again that your computer had trouble detecting the hard drives, and if a firmware upgrade might fix that. I really wouldn't be able to tell unless I had my hands on the computer, and only as a last resort.

Hopefully someone else will have a better idea at this time and you won't have to go and have your system redone.

Mm-hmm... I'm getting my father to drop in the computer to the guy who built it, on Monday. It's about an hour away, but I have met so many shyster computer techs that I just don't want to risk anyone closer getting his/her grubby reformatting hands on it!

In the meantime, the problem is that my burner is not burning very well... It will burn compilations at 4x (ugh), but when I tried to do a drive backup, it just failed. So I will have to try to make backups of all files, make sure I've got installation discs of all programmes (I hope I have), and... yes... just hope that if it's a HDD failure, it won't result in a complete format, because that's a PAIN.

The computer's around 3-4 years old, I think... I can't remember exactly. But I had the new HDD added and made my C drive just a year or year and a half ago. If it's failing, it's not fair. But the "not fair" factor is so prevalent... the whole world is full of things that are "not fair". <sigh> ah well...

Hmmm... may I ask what kind of hard drive it is, and what kind of warranty does it have? Also, did you keep the hard drive manual and/or warranty? The manual is important because it would usually have a list of phone numbers to ring and get the hard drive replaced (you might not have to do this, but better to be safe than sorry)...

If the hard drive is only a year and a half old, then I do not think that that's the problem, though. Hard drives are made to last - they usually last for at least 10 years, if not more... I've had an IBM PC for almost 15 years now, and I only had to replace my hard drive once (when it failed, after 10 years).

Almirena, I sent you a second email about PestPatrol and an article I read in the APC about it... apparently, when they tried testing it under a Pentium 4 with 2.0 GHz, PestPatrol used between 30,000KB to 32,000KB (approximately) and 10% to 91% of the processor power. The program remained memory resident, and after the scan was completed, they had to reboot the computer as it was extremely slow. If that's what happens to a Pentium 4, just imagine what it's doing to your Pentium III...

The PestPatrol adware database (compared to the Ad Aware or Spybot databases) is huge, and because the program is memory resident, I think it keeps taking up memory even if it's not being used (thus denying the memory to any other program, and making your computer slow, and so on...)

Of course, having PestPatrol by itself doesn't create a bootstrap error - but it would certainly account to why your system is running so slowly. I would uninstall PestPatrol, at least as an initial step, and see how it goes...

Best of luck! Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance.

Uh. Not always. My laptop hard drive died after less than two years. When it booted, it couldn't find the c: drive and/or load the operating system and a scan disk revealed that it was having more and more bad sectors. I ended up having to get it replaced, which was a fiasco in and of itself.

Al, I'm hopeing that your problem is Pest Patrol like Rath said. Uninstall that and use Spybot instead. Spybot works fine on my old 400mhz PII with Win98 SE.

Also check how many programs start running automaticlly at start up. If you don't use them the instant the computer starts, then they don't need auto start. Win 98 doesn't have much in the way of System Resource control so you have to watch programs that start automaticlly.

If it's only 3-4 years old Al, then you probably don't have to worry about upgrading the firmware on your computer; sure it's a good idea to have done, but it's not exceptionally critical yet. Hopefully your drive just has a goofy MBT that's confusing your system, since that's easy to fix.

And yes, Spybot is a great program for detecting and removing spyware, so I'll back up PW's recommendation.

Al, if you have any questions about Spybot feel free to ask. I can help you with most aspects of the program.

Thanks for the kind offers to help. My computer is now (I think - if my father has dropped it off) at the computer shop, to be looked at and fixed. I just hope it's not going to be too expensive... <wince>

This is SUCH bad timing. I've got a writing piece to finish this week - it has to be in by Friday. And I just cannot write in longhand any more - I'm too used to doing it on computer. Waaah. And so on...

I'm typing from work in my lunch break. And I can rarely do that. So... until my computer returns, adieu, all.

We await your return. I just hope your computer isn't failing due to a peb-cak error.

Peb-cak? What is that?

And it turned out to be the power supply.

I still can't burn audio CDs at 8x anymore. This is annoying... I can burn data CDs at 8x, but audio only at 4x. I used to be able to burn the audio CDs at 8x... <grinds teeth in frustration>.

Provides sympathy to Almirena. It being the only thing I can offer... :-/

Peb-kac - Problem exsists between keyboard and chair.

Power supply eh? Hopefully you got a decent replacement, at least a 310 watter. Otherwise you might hit the same problem again not too far down the road.

How's your computer, Almirena? Did you fix it yet?

Till next time stay cool

She posted somewhere about it working fine now.