OT: Hard drives

[Pete]

Sorry, don't have time to wait a few hours/days for the lesser-populated computer groups - need a quick sanity check now.

One 500GB drive divided into two equally-sized partitions. The system drive (C:) has 50GB free, while the D: drive has just 47MB (yes, that is MB) free - that couldn't cause slow running could it?

Machine is a Dell Dimension E520 desktop computer running Vista Home Basic/Premium (currently defragging and don't want to interupt it to confirm).

It has McAfee Internet Security (AV, Firewall and spyware) installed and active so I scanned with that and found nothing. Ran Malwarebytes Antimalware and found 119 infected objects, amongst which were a couple of trojans, all of which it got rid of. Disabled McAfee, downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials and it found and removed two JavaExploits.

Ran CCleaner (just the cleaner - not brave enough to run the registry cleaner side of it as I've heard of it causing problems) and it got rid of about 5GB of temp files and stuff.

It's currently running Piriform's Defraggler but I'm not hopeful (1) because it was only 14% fragmented, and (2) even after running all the other stuff (but before running Defraggler) it was still like running through treacle when trying to do anything. For instance, the Malwarebytes scan took over 5 hours to scan the C: drive; Microsoft Security Essentials took 4 hours, Defraggler has currently been running for about an hour and a half and is 27% completed.

What else can cause slow running?

TIA

[Phil L]

I run ccleaner before any scans, that way you are not scanning gigs of temp files that are to be deleted.

Also, in ccleaner is a registry cleaner, run that and get rid of unwanted registry bugs, then run the cleaner again, then the registry cleaner yet again, I do this almost daily and it's always speeded things up

[Brian Gaff]

I agree, and the problem with ccleaner is actually the cleaner being too agressive not the registry part. Also you might try eusing free registry cleaner for a deeper registry clean which is very safe, it even makes a restore point. For goodness sake make sure all vestiges of Mcafee is gone. More than one anti virus running can be a real drain on resources. Vista is a bit of a slug as well. turn off all the pretty stuff so you can get things done faster.

I think though with all those infections having been on the machine it might in this case be safer to start again with a fresh install. I'd normally say, no need but how the heck did that lot get past Mcafee, has it been left to not be updated?

Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

If its Windoze, almost certainly

Windoze.

[John Rumm]

Not especially. Access to that partition will slow down (not only due to fragmentation, but also NTFS itself takes a performance hit as volumes get full).

It would be worth checking the page file settings to make sure they have not been located on D: though.

Also how much RAM has it got?

That will slow down anything!

The hard drive itself could be failing. It might be doing lots of retries etc. You could install something like speedfan and use its capability to inspect the drives internal diagnostic tables. That will give you an early warning if something unusual with the drive.

[John Rumm]

Yes, make sure that is fully patched to the latest service pack. Earlier versions have a habit of just stopping and apparently doing noting for quite long periods of time with no apparent CPU usage either.

[Adrian C]

Also check the drive is not running in PIO mode, which can happen if Windows decides that it's had too much bad luck getting correct data out of it in DMA mode (where it should be set for speed). If this is the case, check the hard drive data cable (SATA?) is attached correctly, also checking the drive for bad blocks with SMART diagnostics (Speedfan above, or hdtune).

[polygonum]

Have just bought myself a new lappie. The old one was playing like a 78 record at 33. The reason for getting a new one was that there seemed to be a real hardware issue on the video chip, or thereabouts - kept causing drivers to fall over.

BUT - before deciding, I tried something that I had totally ignored up till then, ReadyBoost. Bung bit of flash memory (USB thumb drive, or SD card) onto your machine and tell Windows to use it for ReadyBoost. I was surprised that 1 GB of very ordinary flash memory made a noticeable difference. So I bought a fairly fast 8GB SDHC drive - and that made much more of a difference.

So it won't empty your drive and make lots of space. But it might help more than you'd anticipate and can be quite cheap.

And I totally agree with the idea of removing McAfee. I switched to MSSE shortly after it came out and it seems to be relatively ignorable.

On your C: drive - check out the WinSxS folder. And have a look here

(first hit - not necessarily the best).

[Adrian C]

Yup, if McAfee didn't find the exploits and malware found by Malwarebytes and MSE, that could suggest that it's been targetted and knobbled by a trojan, and is thus totally ineffective. Suggest removing every last scrap of it, not merely disabling it.

MSE doesn't fully protect Windows against the attack of viruses. It's just free and a known quick fix if employed to sort out where another virus scanner has failed.

A fully updated and working version of that McAfee package (which should be available through the remaining paid update subscription) should be at least as good as MSE. It could be reinstalled and given another go, if MSE if removed at a later date.

[dennis]

Try this

a bootable Linux disk with a virus scanner. Download it just before you want it as its updated frequently. There is an update over the network but it never works on my laptop (I don't think the kernel supports my network card).

[Michael Chare]

Try fitting an SSD and maybe running Windows 7.

[Tim Watts]

Even Linux tends to do the same with KDE/Gnome getting fluffier and fluffier....

When I when over to using the LXDE window manager[1] th other day, things are dramatically improved :)

Now Bob will come along and say "FVWM"... ;->

[1] LXDE is a modern window manager in the old philosophy of "less is more". Based on OpenBox it is clean (clean like Windows 95, presentationally), simple, light but does not look like it fell out of 1987.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It's not so fluffy it gets in the way, for me...

Well Linux is a tool, not a hobby. Unless it refuses to do something I really really want it to do, I take it as it comes out of the distro.

I'm just used to gnome, these days.

[Pete]

Thanks everyone :-)

[Peter Johnson]

Bear in mind that each file needs space for itself and the temp file while it is being written. If the drive is badly fragmented then it might be slowed down.

[Fred]

What groups are these, I'd like to have a lurk and learn?

[fred]

uk.comp.homebuilt has been a mine of knowledge over the years and while it's a little narrow in scope at the moment, it is well worth subscribing to. It's also one that's worth searching with google groups for a historic post when you have a specific problem.

At one time there was a hard drive data recovery chap there who would post a note of his best clients when prompted but he has been quiet for some time, perhaps he got a shut-up notice .

[ss]

Try turning off system restore, reboot, then turn it back on.

[Adrian C]

It's been posted, he (Duncan of Retrodata) had to retire due to illness.

above also thread lists the regulars that used to frequent that group years ago. Many have flown elsewhere.

[fred]

I think you meant to reply to someone else.