Lenovo B50-30

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

I have failed so far to get it to boot in the safe boot mode.

[tabbypurr]

First thing I'd do is boot it from a lightweight linux distro cd. Running from cd slows any OS down a lot, but not to the extent you describe. If it works that way, as I expect it will, wipe the hdd and install a suitable OS eg a lightweight linux. If you must go windows try an older lighter version. The problem is most likely malware, so a disc format & reinstall of win10 might be enough, maybe.

And for a joke suggestion, win98 runs real fast on modern hardware :) IT takes assorted tweaks just to get it to work.

NT

[polygonum_on_google]

Having spoken with Lenovo support, they advise that at least on some models, you should not use the default Microsoft installer - but should download a version from Lenovo. I have no idea what specific differences there are - but they did say that installing standard and then applying Lenovo updates does NOT have the same effect. (Could have been utter BS. But they were adamant.)

[T i m]

<snip>

<snip>

If such a thing exists then I agree, it's probably worth going that route.

That said, I've installed the std MS W10 on a few Thinkpads and they have all worked fine. This makes sense in that most components and parts in most laptops / PC's are fairly generic, apart from the BIOS or when they have 'locked parts in' etc (like WiFi cards).

I wonder if it's because they want you to install their spyware. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

Its going to be pretty dismal...

Its a dual core processor - probably no better than a 1/5th the speed of a modern business spec desktop machine.

For example a comparison here:

At that age the drive may well be ailing. It will have been slow even when new.

[John Rumm]

You might be able to boot it in safe mode - but even then it will be difficult.

I would start by making a USB bootable copy of acronis[1] (on another machine). Get a SSD, and connect it to the machine via a USB/SATA adaptor. Boot the machine from the acronis boot drive. Clone the internal HDD onto the SSD - might take an hour or more depending on how much is on it.

Now swap out the HDD and replace with the SSD. That should get you a system that will now likely be fast enough to use well enough to optimise it a bit further.

However, keep in mind you can probably get a second hand i5 laptop for £150.

[1] Depending on which SSD you buy you may get a license for Acronis with it, however email me if you need an activation code for acronis - I have spare ones.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

I am told it hasn't had much use since new. It was crawling to the point of logging in, but I have managed to sort that out using a rebuild from the hidden partition. Unfortunately it didn't do a restore to factory and left the following rubbish in place and loading.

It loads various things when booting, including Premier Systems, Winzip Driver and Webdiscover - grinding to almost an halt in the process. It becomes so slow, it is impossible to use control panel to be able remove them.

I seem unable to do a safe boot, or maybe I don't know how...

[The Natural Philosopher]

What will prove the hardware is OK is to burn a live Linux DVD - I recommend MINT MATE - and boot from that. If it runs OK on that the RAM and CPU and network are probably sound.

There are also linux tools to interrogate the SMART data on the disk that will tell you if THAT is dying BUT....

Faced with a slow old PC I'd be tempted to (assuming rest of the hardware is OK)

- junk the HD

- install SSD

- install Linux MINT mate.

- buy a USB case for the old drive and transfer what data you need from that to the SSD.

Unless you have a good reason to retain windows or have some particular software installed, you will get a better end result this way

[Chris J Dixon]

I have to say that, having a spare SSD available, I investigated my partner's 6-year old laptop which had become barely useable, discovered that I could do a swap for the old HDD, and was amazed by the improvement in performance.

Chris

[polygonum_on_google]

We did see some issues that seemed to resolve by rebuilding from their versions. (Sorry, can't remember the details.) On the basis that you probably install some Lenovo drivers anwyway, they could probably shove their spyware in at that stage!

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

John Rumm brought next idea :

Its all sorted now, thanks for the suggestions.

I managed to get it to Safe Boot, via MSCONFIG. Once in Safe Boot, it ran at a decent speed and I was able to go into control panel and removed the problem dross which had been installed.

I followed that with Malwarebytes, which found 850 items of maleware. Once all cleaned up and rebooted, it ran at a sensible speed.

[Bob Eager]

smartmontools is also available, pre-built, for Windows.

[Bob Eager]

It's often the initial installation of femaleware that brings in the dross (from the XXX sites).

[tabbypurr]

2 cores at 2.1GHz is more then enough for any sane OS.

might be. More likely a huge pile of crap loading down to unworkable.

NT

[tabbypurr]

if you can't uninstall apps you can usually just delete them. Boot in linux to use file manager.

NT

[tabbypurr]

There are problably another 850 it didn't detect. I'd format & reinstall.

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

yessbut there was some doubt that he could boot into windows

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

In this case the owner is a female and she had allowed grandkids to use the laptop, with no supervision in regards to what they installed. She is now delighted to get her working laptop back.

[John Rumm]

Which OS did it restore to? If 10, then there are number of ways going to safe mode:

[John Rumm]

Ah, yup once loaded down with Mindspark and all the usual assorted crap, that will often reduce even a high end machine to being pretty much unusable.

If yo do the SSD upgrade now, she they may be pleasently surprised just how much better it could be.