Please help me fix this Laptop!

bainbridge

bainbridge

bainbridge

Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2009
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Bristol
Hi

My girlfriend advised her laptop was running very slowly so I took a look & at the moment I've made things worse rather than better, if anyone can offer some advice it will be much appreciated.

Boot to desktop took around 15mins, so I disabled a few things from startup in msconfig & also ended a number of processes in Task Manager. This got the machine idling away at about 4%.

When I restarted the system just boots up as it was before, furthermore there is no network adapter found, the usb port don't function & if I attempt to install drivers I get told I have no admin rights, even though I'm logged in as administrator. Device manager is empty & I'm tearing my hair out wondering what to do to avoid having to do a clean install.

So instead of making the machine quicker she now has no internet access & I had to take it away to try & fix. There is an XP Pro product key on the underside of the machine & I have a an original disc but really want to avoid doing this as she has no CDs or serial numbers associated with the software she's purchased & installed over the past few years.

Please help!

PS One weird thing I noticed is when I pressed F8 to boot into safe mode, on the windows log in screen, instead of giving the option to "Shutdown Computer" or log into a user account, it says "shut down Windows Photo workshop" I've never heard of this before & as I mentioned the Product Key sticker says XP Pro.
 
bainbridge said:
There is an XP Pro product key on the underside of the machine & I have a an original disc but really want to avoid doing this as she has no CDs or serial numbers associated with the software she's purchased & installed over the past few years.
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Once things have got to this stage, a clean install is really the only sensible option... yes, it's a pain, particularly if you no longer have all the required installation discs, but look at it this way - as things stand, she doesn't really have a functioning PC at all, so there's not much to lose in practice.

If you list the applications she uses, perhaps people could suggest some decent free or open source alternatives, or there might even be ways of obtaining the originals at little or no cost.
 
CaptainCrash said:
Once things have got to this stage, a clean install is really the only sensible option...
Click to expand...

also agree with this.
if you can boot into pc, backup all her docs, pics etc...
and make a record of all her programs.

do a clean install. (how old id the lappy? if its fairly new, there is usually a revovery partition hidden on the harddrive, usuallly f10 or f11 at bootup brings this up)
go to laptop manufactures site and download drivers (or do this on a different pc and transfer them with a usb stick if you have one)

then transfer all the backups back and reinstall all the programs
 
Thanks for your responses folks. A clean install is what I intend doing however with the USB ports not working my only option is to back up her data to 42 cds! I only have 33 blank discs & it doesn't write DVDs.

Programwise her main concern is losing Photoshop which someone put on there for her (I know) but something free like Gimp will suffice. Open office will take care of word processing etc.

Just need to find a way to back up 30gb of photos now!
 
boot from an ubuntu live cd rename windows, program files, and documetns and settings... delete system restore folder...

reinstall OS... cut and paste data back, and if you have to you can always boot the old windows by renaming the old folders back...

after a month delete all the old folders to save disk space...

if its a dell machine and a dell branded restore disk it will not ask for a serial number

get the drivers from dells web site... job done bish bash bosh... now its time to get payment for your hard work!

*** i usually delete all the hidden update uninstall folders from hte windows folder first to safely maximise space
 
maj said:
If you have 30GB spare on your hard drive you could copy the data across using a caddy for now. Not sure if there is a limit on the amount you can store, but there's http://www.dropbox.com/.
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The USB ports aren't functioning, but thanks for the idea of online storage, I'm going to suggest this for the most important pics.

edscdk said:
boot from an ubuntu live cd rename windows, program files, and documetns and settings... delete system restore folder...

reinstall OS... cut and paste data back, and if you have to you can always boot the old windows by renaming the old folders back...

after a month delete all the old folders to save disk space...

if its a dell machine and a dell branded restore disk it will not ask for a serial number

get the drivers from dells web site... job done bish bash bosh... now its time to get payment for your hard work!

*** i usually delete all the hidden update uninstall folders from hte windows folder first to safely maximise space
Click to expand...

:eek: That's a little beyond my capabilities my friend.
 
The SD slot is functioning so I'm backing up the photos across to my main machine in 8gb chunks, should be done in 4 lots.

Only 225mins to go & I can start on the 2nd lot :D
 
Surely you could download an Ubuntu Live CD, or similar, burn to CD and boot from it and use the USB ports from within Ubuntu? Unless the USB ports are totally shot.
 
bainbridge said:
The USB ports aren't functioning, but thanks for the idea of online storage, I'm going to suggest this for the most important pics.
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So your computer/laptop doesn't have working usb ports either? As long as the computer your plugging the caddy into has a working usb port then you'll be fine.

A caddy acts like an external hard drive (providing the hard drive spins up so it can be read). All you do is remove hard drive from knackered laptop, connect it to the caddy, you then plug the caddy into a device that has at least 30GB of space and then copy the data across.
 
Ahh, yeah I could do that actually, though the only medium I have to transfer data is an 8gb SD card which I'm using now anyway.

Thanks for the suggestion, I'm going to burn one off now to use to check the laptop hardware once the data is transferred (the ubuntu I have atm is on a usb key).

Once the live disc is booted at least then I can see if the netword adaptor & usb ports are actually working.
 
maj said:
So your computer/laptop doesn't have working usb ports either? As long as the computer your plugging the caddy into has a working usb port then you'll be fine.

A caddy acts like an external hard drive (providing the hard drive spins up so it can be read). All you do is remove hard drive from knackered laptop, connect it to the caddy, you then plug the caddy into a device that has at least 30GB of space and then copy the data across.
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Oh I see what you're on about now, actually removing the HDD. Unfortunately I don't have one of those caddies maj :(
 
bainbridge said:
Oh I see what you're on about now, actually removing the HDD. Unfortunately I don't have one of those caddies maj :(
Click to expand...

Sadly it's one work around that isn't free :( Luckily there are plenty of websites out there that sell such things quite cheap, just depends how quickly she needs the photos.
 
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