Something's causing my PC to suddenly perform like molasses...

[Engels]

Its called a 'Windows Repair Install'. Once you've gotten your new hard drive, and you've figured out how to make a mirror copy of the drive to this new drive, boot it up. If you're still getting errors, you can attempt the repair.

Its a bit tricky only because like most MS documentation, its counter intuitive to get to. You want to put in the WinXP install disk and make as if you're going to reinstall from scratch. Go through the install cd boot up, then right after hitting f8 'installation agreement' page, you'll notice that windows looks for any previously installed OS. It should find it, at which point you'll get the option to repair that installation. What this does is strip all the OS drivers and reinstall them, thereby repairing any damaged system files by replacement. It will look, on the screen, as if its installing things from scratch, but if you pay attention, you'll notice that the first action is to delete a bunch of stuff, which is normal. After that's concluded, you should be able to log into your maching as before, and find your programs and files intact. There's a chance that the repair process will remove drivers for video/sound and you'll have to reinstall those device drivers, but its less work than doing everything again.

If that doesn't fix your ills, then its unfortunately time for a fresh reinstall.

[UnSub]

As an update - the PC's gone back to the shop. The HD is less than 12 months old so I figure they can fix it for me. There are errors on the hard drive, I couldn't get it to boot into safe mode (it wasn't an available option) and it was getting increasingly difficult to even load up the desktop.

However, once I move on from this system, I'm never going back to this shop. I shouldn't be bringing this system in at least once a year for repairs.

[Soukyan]

Have to give a nod to Spinrite if you need to recover data off an inaccessible drive.  Gibson may be a douche, but he wrote at least one good program that has saved my butt a couple of times.

Spinrite is a pretentious piece of placebo shit.

Care to give an explanation of why you say this? I was considering getting a copy, but if it really is useless, then I'll save my money. Does it not work better than other tools? Is there another tool that you would recommend instead? I'm honestly interested to know. Thanks.

[TripleDES]

Sums it up (don't be confused at the site title, it's a sidetracked discussion):
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.dcom.xdsl/msg/9aeee32323c2978e?dmode=source&hl=en

tl;dr: It only appears to have an effect on your MFM/RLL disks in your old ass IBM PC/AT that haven't caught operating temperature yet.

[UnSub]

It's back from the shop. They could find nothing wrong with it.

On one hand: idiots.

On the other hand: they'd switched off all of the already small list of start-up programs I use. When I reactivated ZoneAlarm Security Suite - and only ZoneAlarm - things slowed down again. It looks like ZA wants to update the antivirus, but can't do so for some reason. Hmmm, I'll have to play with that.

[Lantyssa]

Figures it might be Zone Alarm.  I don't know why everybody loves it.

[UnSub]

Figures it might be Zone Alarm.  I don't know why everybody loves it.

I like an all-in-one solution and it is reasonably well reviewed across the industry (that I saw, anyway). Given that they bought in a well-regarded AV program, it seemed like a good idea. Plus I've used ZA for about 4 years with no real issues until now.

Still investigating.

[Sir Fodder]

Hmm, I wonder why you couldn't get it to boot into safe mode (you tried tapping on the F8 key right? tap like once a second)... that would have helped clear it up without taking it in, the next step would have been troubleshooting with MSConfig as mentioned... So whats next? Are you gonna uninstall Zone Alarm and see what happens?

[UnSub]

Meant to update this:

Playing around, on start-up I've had only my Logitech mouse drivers load up and the PC still performs poorly. So Zonealarm looks to be in the clear.

Safe mode works correctly, but when I move on to safe mode with networking, the performance drops.

I haven't yet tried to run things with the modem / router disconnected / reinstalled, but has anyone heard of a modem / router causing these kind of problems? I'll look up the model and such things at home later if it helps.

[Engels]

Its rare, but a failing nic card/modem/random periferal, or corrupt drivers running them can make a system hang as the system makes calls to the failing device and has to wait for a response that might not be forthcoming. Yank out the nic card or modem and see if that clears up the problem.

[UnSub]

Its rare, but a failing nic card/modem/random periferal, or corrupt drivers running them can make a system hang as the system makes calls to the failing device and has to wait for a response that might not be forthcoming. Yank out the nic card or modem and see if that clears up the problem.

That seems to have done it. I switched network ports and suddenly performance has seen a huge improvement.

[UnSub]

Okay, in conclusion:

It was ZoneAlarm. The short of it is that ZA was fighting against it's own updates, treating them as though they were hostile actions of hackers. Which then broke other things. WinXP would load up fine if the network link to the internet was down, but the second I plugged it back in before booting the computer up, performance went back into the toilet.

Turning ZA 'off' didn't work because it still leaves things running behind the scenes. It required a few options switched off, an uninstall, a bit of a system clean-up and then a reinstall but, after a test or two, things look like they are working as they should.

[Bstaz]

Check your warranty on the drive do. Seagate used to, and may still have a 3 or 5 year replacement plan.  Then again.. you gotta send them the drive which opens a whole can of worms if you have nudes of the wife on the drive.

[Lantyssa]

See why I hate Zone Alarm?  Even when you turn it off it still screws over your system.

[Reg]

ZoneAlarm does corrupt itself with age. I've never seen anything quite as bad what UnSub describes but I've seen it stop accepting its own updates and refuse to be uninstalled before.  When ZoneAlarm starts acting up like that I normally take it as a signal that it's time for a routine system disk format and reinstall that I do every couple of years anyway.