I'm currently running windows xp and started a disk cleanup last night @5pm. As of Monday 19 hours later, its still doing its thing. Is these reasonable?? Won't it fry the CPU? Its my kids pc and I know they have not done one in God knows how long.And yes, I did a search and found nothing.tx/slb
Your pc should be fine it does not normally take this long though.Have you got a big hard drive in which is almost up to the full capacity.You would have to have some serious data on this for it to take this long.Personaly i would shut down and let it cool down and start it again and if it does the same again.Check the drive as this may have errors on it which is why clean up is taking so long. John179
John help me out. What do ya mean by check the drives? How is this done? This thing has been going since Sunday, although I did shut it down a few times last night...got pissed! I think its a 80g HD.tx/slb
I have Nortan systems 2004 on my system which i norally use to do diagnostic checks on my drive.If you have not got this another easy way to scan you disk for errors which i use to use is. 1.Re boot my system with a old windows me 98 or what ever start up disk you have available. 2.When the disk is fully started you will be presented 3 options.You need to select option start up without cdrom support.This will go thorugh some more dos bits and bobs and finish on a prompt looking something like this A:> 3.On this prompt type in the following leaving a space like i do scandisk /all.So the line on completion should look like this. A:>scandisk /all and then hit enter your drive will then be scaned for errors.A red b will define bad clusters on the drive all in yellow is ok.If you have many bad clusters you may want to think about re formatting the driver if they can not be repaired through scan disk.If you need help with this give me a shout and i will assist.Just remember to leave one space between sandisk and the / so its scandisk space /all hope this helps Thanks John179
Using XP, can't I find something that will allow me to go straight to MSDOS without finding/making a startup disk? If I can I could do the scandisk from there,right?
To be honest iam not 100% sure on that one but here is a good site for downloading start up disk's if you do not have one spare. http://www.bootdisk.com/ Thanks John179
I have often completed this task with windows me and 98 start up disc's and iam on xp.I think you would be better off with one of these as i have never used a 2000 start up disc so it would be wrong of me to advise.You could also download a diagnostic disk from the makers of the drive you wish to scan.They will have something on there site for scaning your drive. You could also use your restore point in xp which may help to indicate any serious errors on the drive.You could just try to keep going back until all registers are clean so you can use clean up without a problem. John179
Why dont you just click on my computer right click on hard drive which is usually c and then click on properties, tools, error checking, check now, check boxes automatically fix, and scan for errors. This works fine for Windows XP and then rebbot letting Windows fix your problem. After doing this I suggest you defrag the drive
Thanks for that one JimMrBass i totally forgot you could do it this way i think using nortons tends to make you forget the other options available to you. Nice One John179
Gentlemen, is this the same as disk cleanup? Does the sys restore delete any prior software added i.e platinum or decryter? Going to try this soon standby for futher ?'s. BTW, thanks to both of you!/slb
John179 & JimMrBass; Tried doing "check for error" thing last night and the results were a blue screen with a bunch of crap like check bios,disable video card, check for updated drivers etc...Ended up doing a sys restore. Did a drfrag and found a movie that defrad picked up. I'll delete that. Any ideas? If I do get the Nort sys04', do you guys think that will fix the problem of doing a disk cleanup?/slb
It may be i'm not sure if Nortons will only recover Data from when installed.To be honest on that one iam not 100% sure.If this is your kids pc you may be better off looking at saving any important data they may require to a disk and then complete a low format of of the drive which will erase all errors and then re install everthing.This will be the cheaper option as it won't cost you a penny long term i would look at some recovery software.Obviously as this would not save you money but save you time. John179
john179, great idea but I have my stuff on that too. I checked and I have 50g free. There has got to be a way to do a disk cleanup. Should I try it again, will it harm anything to let it run another 12hours or if I do a sys restore will it erase programs I have put on after the restore point? At this point I don't care about the $, I just want a simple cleanup./slb
Windows system restore sucks in plain english. What I would do because I think you might be missing some very important files such as Cab files that might have been deleted by mistake. I would back up all my data on either cd roms or dvd and then I would reformat my hard drive. Should you be running Windows XP this can be done easily by placing either your restore disc in your cd rom or dvd drive and shutting down your computer for 30 seconds then start your computer and follow directions for reformatting your hard drive. This will erase all information on the drive and restore it back to factory specifacations making it like new. Then add your files one by one making sure they work properly when you see one that wont work right delete it and you should be fine. If you do not have a restore disc then use a Windows XP disc and when you start your computer click on F5 as it is starting up then follow directions for formatting your hard drive it will ask you for Administrator password if you have one enter it if not then just hit enter. When you see the dos symble type in C:\Windows>Format C: then hit enter. and format the drive. Good luck
If you do re format your your hard drive as suggested this is then the time to get something like Nortons System works.This gives you 2 really good options should you have this problem again. 1.Nortons go back an excellent way to restore if windows will not start up as your bios passes everything over to go back.Then go back passes everything over to windows.So if windows would not start you re boot hit the space bar and then use go back to a time with no errors. 2.You can use ghost to make a back up image of your drive and restore to the same point it was at the time of backing up. I use this software as i use to be the re format king until i started to use this.I reckon i must have re formatted my pc somewhere in the double figure.Iam one of these that likes everything to be perfect and still searching. Thanks John179
When ur pc is running, just pull the main plug from the main power, or just trip ur circuit breaker. Blow up the transformer of ur area or the main High voltage 380 KV tower of ur city or destroy all the major power plants of ur city especially nuclear since it is responsible for providing basic load to an area. Switch-on ur computer (make sure the power is back in)and the windows would scan the HD itself.
You can set your boot order to disable for all in bios and it will boot in dos command then type scandisk /all. Sounds like you have a drive problem are you running updated antivirus? If not go to the norton or mcafee sight and get a free scan. Are you doing a disk cleanup or defrag? I use Norton 2002 and the one button checkup is pretty nice checks registry, programs, frag level, shortcuts, last virus scan, and free space. The go back prog included with it is nice but what a hog its worse than xp's restore. I turn both off and back up(ghost)often on another drive. Remember a fresh format and install makes everything new again.
Surely i must be next in line to the throne then Same here, those tiny incy wincy little bugs can be just sooooooooooooo annoying
