Why has my bootup slowed to a snail's pace?

[_aD]

Please don't handle the hard disk - and certainly do not subject it to temperature extremes or forces - unless you know why you are doing so and how to do so safely. You may damage it irrecoverably, especially if you drop it or subject it to a shock of static electricity. The freezer trick is an absolute last resort if the disk is suffering from a very specific physical fault and I don't think yours is, from the symptoms you describe. And you only hit a hard disk if you want to break it.

It does sound like your computers are infected with a virus and, especially with something as nasty as a rootkit, it really should be looked at by a professional. You should also consider all USB sticks, memory cards and devices that you've connected to be "infected" and get them virus scanned ASAP. Anything you plug them into may also become infected - the last thing you want is to have it spread! CClean and defrag will not speed up your computer, nor will deleting temporary files.

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks all.

Ok, an update. The downstairs machine now seems to be ok. After the events described above - ie: "I got a warning from AVAST about a suspicious file in System 32 (Rootkit.exe is the name, I think). AVAST program suggested I restart to let it scan in boot mode. I did. When I returned after the scan was done, I just had my logon screen. I logged back on, then got the same warning (i.e. to restart and let AVAST do the boot mode scan)." - I simply did as instructed and let it boot-scan again, and this time when it'd finished, I found myself looking at an apparently clean and healthy desktop. I updated Avast, ran a deep system scan, found nothing, and ever since it's been working fine. So it seems that one is ok, and it also seems likely that the woes of the two computers were no more than an unfortunate coincidence. (The symptoms were, after all, entirely different - if what ails the upstairs was what ailed the downstairs, why didn't it simply come up with the same rootkit warning? They're running the same version of Avast after all.)

No, I'm increasingly leaning towards some kind of problem with the HD. It is an old one after all. The only thing that baffles me is that after each of these incidents, where I never manage to make it into Windows, so can't shut down properly, but have instead simply to pull the plug, the rebooting computer - as you would expect - automatically goes into chkdsk. The final report only stays on-screen for a split second, but even at a glance, it doesn't *look* like it's reporting any faults. I did notice, eg, 0 bits in bad sectors as one of the list of items.

So...like I say, I'm leaning towards getting a new (old) HD (a friend says he has a couple lying around) and trying that out. If that works, all I then face is the fun of getting 6 months of my wife's work off the old one before it dies altogether. And then I'm going to stick it in the freezer and see what happens!

 

[Scilly Suffolk]

Good to hear you have at least one machine up & running.

Rootkits are designed to hide malware buried deep in your system and my concern would be that it has succeeded in concealing itself, rather than having been removed.

May I suggest you scan it with HijackThis and have the log it produces checked over.

HJT produces an in-depth report of everything that is running on your PC, including hidden nasties.

This is a good guide to using HJT, you only need to follow steps 1 & 2.

You then need to upload it to a forum where one of the nice people there will look over it and give you the all clear, or not.

5 Star is one that I've used in the past; WhatTheTech (formerly TomCoyote) is another that I haven't, but is well regarded.

Please be sure to read and follow the instructions/stickies on posting logs first: they're all volunteers and analysis is time consuming.

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks Jimmy - I will.

 

[cyberknight]

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000706.htm

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/disk-drives/f/3534/t/3726795.aspx

 

[swee'pea99]

Weird update...

Told a geeky friend about this, and he asked me to send him a photo of the full 'E61 media test failure check cable' message, so I started up and tried, but each time the time-lag on my phone's camera meant I missed the crucial 1/2 second that the message was on-screen, so I kept trying, knowing I'd get it eventually, and on the fourth or fifth attempt I suddenly found I was looking at a completely different set of words, including one saying 'start windows normally', and another just above it saying 'start using last known good configuration'. So I selected that and bingo - it started up normally. And now seems to be fine. Odd.

Thanks all.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

sounds like a flaky HDD. Do the back up thing pronto!

 

[swee'pea99]

Really? I did the backup straightaway, but does this all add up to a HD on its last legs?

 

[SavageHoutkop]

That 'cable warning' means that the PC couldn't talk to whatever it was trying to talk to (likely your HDD).
Option 1: cable is broken / loose (doesn't explain why it has suddenly resurrected itself)
Option 2: thing it was talking to wasn't responding (your HDD) or was responding funny (i.e. flaky HDD)
Option 3: something else strange is happening (like you've managed to fry your motherboard's BIOS or something else equally odd) - more unlikely but nevertheless possible.

As it's a laptop and I imagine you've never mucked around inside I find it hard to believe option 1; which leaves us with 2...

 

[swee'pea99]

Thanks for that. Interesting. It's actually a desktop, and checking the cables was the first thing I did, so I don't think it's that - especially since it's now working fine...which would also seem to rule out a fried motherboard. Dodgy HD does sound probable, tho' if I was a betting man I think I'd probably be taking a punt on 'something else equally odd'. I'll just see how it goes for the moment, but do regular backups to be on the safe side.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

sorry, thought the one was a laptop and the other a desktop for some reason!

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Now that it's working see if you can find something to do a decent test of the HDD (once you've backed up!). I haven't had to do this in a while so don't have any suggestions but have a google. As you were getting to the part where Windows gets involved, the odds lean more towards a software oops than a hardware oops (but it could be that windows is trying to access part of the disc that is flaky). You want whatever it is to do a really good read/write check on the hard drive. I think I did mine via Linux last time I had to attempt to rescue a computer with its feet in the air. I don't think I used this one http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ although I was tempted.

 

[fossyant]

If it's a SATA hard drive, the cables can be flaky. I had boot issues after a couple of years with my RAID SATA PC, pull the cables, put back in was fine for a few months. Changed the cables, and no issues since (2-3 years).