Black screening and freezing

Am tidying up a Compaq Presario CQ 60 laptop with Vista and the machine keeps freezing when I try to open Control Panel or a downloaded app like EaseUS for example. Plus it sometimes completely blacks out except for the taskbar which one cannot even get chkdsk to run.

The machine is running VERY slowly to boot and she has asked e to look at it because her daughters and son have downloaded lots of different things over the years like Facebook iTunes Game sites etc which I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

I have tried safe mode but it too seems to be getting more useless by the hour.

There is no disk or recovery media (as usual) so am stuck with either fixing this or doing a factory default (want to avoid that if possible). The only other thought is that the hard drive is dying or something.

Anyone got any ideas please?

With all the downloads sounds like it might be spyware or a virus or worse
Update and then run a full anti virus scan
Download and make a full scan with malwarebytes.

Do what Rich suggests first. If clean check out event viewer

There are several ways to find what the problem is. The best is to go into event viewer (type eventvwr in search). Event viewer (local) and look for errors listed in the last day, week, etc. Then go to the windows log>application tab. Finally the windows Logs>system tabs.

You want to look for all errors (they have red in the left column ).

When you find them you want to look for critical errors that say app hang, app crash, or anything that relates to the problem.

When you find them please note the event ID, and the source codes and tell us what they are.

zigzag3143 said:

Do what Rich suggests first. If clean check out event viewer

There are several ways to find what the problem is. The best is to go into event viewer (type eventvwr in search). Event viewer (local) and look for errors listed in the last day, week, etc. Then go to the windows log>application tab. Finally the windows Logs>system tabs.

You want to look for all errors (they have red in the left column ).

When you find them you want to look for critical errors that say app hang, app crash, or anything that relates to the problem.

When you find them please note the event ID, and the source codes and tell us what they are.

Click to expand...

Ok thanks fellas I was up to 2am last night running Hitman Pro. Kaspersky TDSS Dr Web Cureit, Hijack this - just about anything I could run from a USB stick in safe mode as trying to open anything in "normal" Windows results in a message that says "The pipe state is invalid"
Plus on a "normal" boot I get a message Host processing Windows has stopped and was closed an Microsoft will let me know why - huh like as if that is likely.

I have tried chkdsk / drive - memory check in the BIOS nothng seems to work.


If only I could save her photos it would be something and thenI would doa factory default as I can think of nothing else to do. My other option I suppose is to add more RAM perhaps change the drive and install an OEM 7!

If you just want to save your stuff, this is how
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek
See if you can download it.

Thanks rich will give that a go.
John

richc46 said:

If you just want to save your stuff, this is how
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek
See if you can download it.

Click to expand...

You are just brilliant rich it's working had to fiddle around with it a bit as the Geek site's screen shots were a fair bit different to the Ubuntu that I downloaded.

When I managed to find the files I just told it to send the pics and docs to the 4GB stick and have just tried the first batch and they are there.

Thanks so much again she will (and I will be too) over the moon

Now this is one little wrinkle I am going to have to remember.:D

Now all I have to do is make sure I get everything - you've made my day just as I thought it was all over red rover

Im glad that it worked out for you. We always try to help, but it does not always go as planned. I know that pics are valuable. I have some pics of my trip to Europe that I know I would not want to lose. You may want to back up your valuables so that you will never have to risk losing them again.