Solved Problem with Vista

[Dougwh]

I recently installed a new 500gig hard drive that has a small built in solid state drive. Did a fresh install of Vista Home Premium and installed all current updates along with all my programs from the old drive. Everything was working fine until yesterday. I usually use hibernate when I shut down the computer, as I did the night before. When I turned on the computer yesterday, The OS loaded fine but I couldn't do much, if anything, with the system. Everything was very, very slow. There was very little that would open.
I tried doing virus and malware scans but they wouldn't work. So, I went into safe mode and tried the scans. Everything I tried WORKED as it should. Went back to normal operating mode and the same problem was there.
I then removed the new hard drive and put in the old one. Everything worked as it should. I then set up the new drive as an external drive and ran every scan program I had on it. They found nothing. I used Zone Alarm Antivirus. Malwarebites Free, Iobit Malware Fighter.
This has me stumped. Any help at all will be greatly appreciated.

 

[richc46]

Welcome
Sounds like it might be a bad hard drive. Go to the website of your hard drive manfacturer and test the drive
If you cannot find the test and/or the manufacturer your computer you can use the self diagnostic test that is part of your computer.

 

[Dougwh]

Thanks. I'll give that a try. I hope others will also reply to this thread.

 

[jeffce]

ran every scan program I had on it. They found nothing. I used Zone Alarm Antivirus. Malwarebites Free, Iobit Malware Fighter.

What antivirus software/antimalware software were you using to begin with?

Did you have any and did you do any browsing on the internet without an antivirus program?

You mentioned running Malwarebytes, was it the Pro version?

 

[Dougwh]

To richc46;
I ran The Seagate diagnostics software. It found nothing wrong. I also ran MicroSoft's malicious software removal tool. It found nothing wrong. Good idea but it doesn't look like anything is wrong with the hard drive.

To jeffce;
I used the free version of Malwarebites.
Along with Windows Defender, the programs I listed have been used for a very long time with all the proper updates and upgrades that have been offered.
Regarding surfing the web without an antivirus program turned on or installed goes, I have never knowingly gone online without some form of antivirus program running and a good fire wall.

After having run all the above tests and all showing no problems I think I will put the newer hard drive back in and see what it does. Maybe it was just a fluke.
I will come back it the morning and update you all.

Thanks for the advice so far.

 

[pengipete]

Using the new drive (and no other HD's), boot into Windows and wait a minute or two for it to fully boot. Assuming it is still being unresponsive, press "CTRL + SHIFT + ESC" to open the Task Manager and go to the "Processes" tab. Click on the "CPU" tab until you have the tasks listed in highest CPU-using order. (note - with the pc running slow, it may take a while to respond to every mouse click - be patient and avoid clicking anything twice).

Look at the task(s) that are making heavy use of the CPU. If there's anything other than "System Idle Process" constantly using tens of percent of the CPU - you've found your problem. Depending on what that task is, it may simply be that you need to let it run for half an hour to finish doing what it started. If you post back with the process name, we'll be able to decide what is happening and how to sort it out - most likely by uninstalling some corrupted application that is running at start-up.

If the only high CPU usage shows as "System Idle Process" - go to the "Performance" tab in "Task Manager", click on the "Resource Monitor" button and look at the graph labelled "Disk". Wait a couple of minutes for it to settle down and then see if it shows the hard-drive as running constantly at 100% or if it shows peaks and troughs. If it shows the drive running at 100% the whole time, leave it running for at least half an hour then check again - that's in case the drive is simply trying to "self repair" in the background.

Post back to let us know how you get on. The important thing is to be patient - there are some "housekeeping" tasks that Windows will do that need to be allowed to complete and very occasionally, they hog the processor or other hardware for several minutes. Interrupting them just means they get run again next time you boot - which you then interrupt etc etc.

 

[jeffce]

I will come back it the morning and update you all.

Sounds good.

 

[Dougwh]

pengipete;

I put the new drive in the laptop, started it up and let it sit for about 1/2 hour before I could do anything with it. I shut down a couple of newer programs I had installed. Finally got task master to open up. It showed a somewhat higher then normal usage on the hard drive and memory. Nothing to get upset about. Process tab never showed anything hogging resources. At this point I had spent 1 1/2 hours.
I then rebooted the system to see what would happen. it went right back to the problem at hand.

After going through the whole process again, I deleted some of the programs I had shut down before. At this point the OS seems to be working almost normal. I am typing this post on the laptop.

Next step for me is to reboot the laptop and see what happens.

I will let you know as soon as I get that done.

 

[Dougwh]

Ok. Rebooted the laptop and am still having the same problem.
In my last post I forgot something very important.
After reboot as I am trying to click on any running icon in the tray, I get this error ( Logon Process has failed to create security options dialog ).

 

[MilesAhead]

I found the same error msg here with laptops being involved. Seems a couple of people found various fixes or work-arounds.

 

[Dougwh]

Well gang, its time I got back to you.
This whole thing has driven me the other half crazy. I have tried all suggestions without any real luck. Did a full blown checkdisk. It came back clean. Ran all kinds of scans checking every aspect of the OS, the hard drive and anything else I could think of. Followed MilesAheads link and that started leading in the right direction. It didn't solve the problem but it led me down the right path.

Found a link related to "Clean Booting" the OS http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929125 that helped me narrow down the problem to one of my programs having problems during startup.

I think the last update my have had a problem. I don't think everything is 100% yet as I am still having some issues after a complete shutdown. but I think it definitely is completely fixable with a little more time.

I want to thank all that offered help. Without it I would not have found the right way to go.