My computer is taking 10 times as long on start up to get going.

Sony Vaio desktop
1.6GHz
Pentium 4

On boot up and for the first 5 minutes, sometime longer the drive light keep flashing as if in a loop. Something it never drive. There is also a HD light which is acting normally.

Outlook doesnt seem happy as keeps non responding, as do some other programs.

Its hit and miss on start up as to if the computer is just going to hang. I have got virus protection and thats clean !!

Any ideas before I reformat!!

Cheers

Jonathan

 

What os are you running?

Does the drive make a clicking noise?

 

XP

Not a noticable clicking noise, but certainly hear a noise that wasnt there before.

Jonathan

 

Right click on MY COMPUTER & select PROPERTIES. Select the HARDWARE tab & then DEVICE MANAGER. Click on the tab next to IDE ATA/ATAPI CONTROLLERS & go to the PRIMARY IDE CHANNEL & ADVANCED SETTINGS & ensure that it has not reset to PIO MODE. If it has then try & change it back to UDMA.

Darren

 

That checks out OK. But opening just going through that process took 3 minutes. The drive light has now gone out and the system speeded up. Just seems to be the first 5-10 minutes after booting up the computer !!

JOnathan

 

run :

virus scan
checkdisk
defrag

greg

 

Dont know if this helps, but surfing is fine. Computer slows up again and starts a small clicking noise when I ask it to start defrag, virus check etc.

Jonathan

 

checked everything out, and its still the same

Jonathan

 

sounds like your hard-disk is on the way out. Recommend backing up your data asap and replacing hard-disk.

 

Go to the Hard drive's website download the diagnostics software for the drive then test it..