Ok, it used to take like 10 or 15 minutes to load. Now it takes about 2 cause i used some tools and techniques to clean up the registry and deleted viruses and malware etc. i also defragmented.

So that’s great.
But it’s still sluggish in the beginning when the desktop is loaded. it takes a few minutes… even the start sound that should sound right after the Welcome screen…you hear it after few minutes or seconds after the desktop is loaded

what else can i do????

it’s windows xp sp2
the computer is a notebook Acer Aspire 5100

sometime ago my cousin dropped it and ever since it also started doing weird things. The dvd/cd drive also doesn’t work….it doesn’t load dvds/cds..in rare occasions it does.
NOTE!!! After the slug in the beginning when the desktop screen is loaded, then its really fast and responsive. It’s just in the beginning that it is sluggish.

I think I have contracted a virus. I am having browser issues. When I try to click on a link from Gmail, Google Reader, Google search, Yahoo search, or a variety of other websites, the browser opens a different, spammy-looking shopping website. It won’t open the right link. I have to copy and paste the address into the address bar to get the page to open. And sometimes that doesn’t work. I suspected that I got a virus, so I Googled "virus removal software." Not a single website that contains virus removal software will open. I get the same error message "Page cannot be displayed" for every anti-virus site I try to visit. This makes me think it is a virus.

Here is something that further complicates the issue. I was thinking that if I can’t download virus removal software, I could purchase some and install it on the computer. But then I remembered that our CD drive isn’t working for some reason. Aaargh! What should I do?

I called the Geek Squad and was told that they recommend an agent come to my house and run a diagnostic on the computer to target the problem. I don’t really want to spend 0 for a guy to come out and tell me I have a virus. I am pretty sure that’s the problem. I don’t have a problem paying to have the virus removed, but how can I do that without paying someone to diagnose it? Any suggestions?

Details: It’s an HP Pavilion laptop that uses Vista.

I’m looking at a friends laptop at the moment. It crashed, won’t boot, freezes at boot up and he lost all his files. I hooked his HDD up to my pc using an ide adapter and recovered the files no problem. My question is this though, having complete access to his windows folder, is there anyway of repairing the drive by configuring the files within it? is there any software out there that might scan for the problem maybe.

Cheers
Louise <><
It’s definitely the drive
It’s definitely the drive because I tried it out in another machine
ok so I formatted the drive, popped it back in the laptop and went to boot from cd drive which is first in boot sequence and I’m getting the error "ntldr is missing" .What now?

winlogon.exe and regedit.exe I now can’t open regedit.exe.
When I quit the antivirus it comes up with a message saying that I need to insert the Windows XP SP2 CD in the CD Drive to repair the infected files – Although I don’t have the CD.
I have done a Virus Scan and they have not shown up. Is there anything to worry about?
It says I have the Trojan called: ‘Trojan.Win32.Pakes.x3’