What programs to put on a CD for troubleshooting?

[Ed from AZ]

My duaghter's Dell Latitude 600 laptop has taken to booting XP Pro SP
2 very slow - like 30 minutes or more from power button to booted. I
started in Safe Mode, deleted all the temp files and crashed MS Office
files, then defragged. It helped a bit. Did a search here for "slow
boot" and got a ton of suggestions.

Personally, I'm thinking it's either some kind of malware/spyware/
virus (she has the Windows firewall on and AGV free), or a WIndows
update that didn't complete and choked. (I do remember several days
ago her computer said "Now installing updates and shutting down" -
overnight! So we just killed it.)

I'm thinking it would be nice to have a bootable CD that would have a
small OS and tools to remove malware/spyware/virus programs, along
with maybo some other diagnostic tools that would give an experienced
computer person a good glimpse of what was going on in the machine.

Does one of these already exist? If not, what programs would you put
on such a CD?

Ed

 

[M]

My duaghter's Dell Latitude 600 laptop has taken to booting XP Pro SP
2 very slow - like 30 minutes or more from power button to booted. I
started in Safe Mode, deleted all the temp files and crashed MS Office
files, then defragged. It helped a bit. Did a search here for "slow
boot" and got a ton of suggestions.

Personally, I'm thinking it's either some kind of malware/spyware/
virus (she has the Windows firewall on and AGV free), or a WIndows
update that didn't complete and choked. (I do remember several days
ago her computer said "Now installing updates and shutting down" -
overnight! So we just killed it.)

I'm thinking it would be nice to have a bootable CD that would have a
small OS and tools to remove malware/spyware/virus programs, along
with maybo some other diagnostic tools that would give an experienced
computer person a good glimpse of what was going on in the machine.

Does one of these already exist? If not, what programs would you put
on such a CD?

Ed

Have you checked to see if the hard drive's Transfer Mode is PIO or not?
To check, right click on My Computer/Properties/Hardware tab/Device
Manager button/click on the + next to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers/Right
click on Primary IDE Channel/Properties/Advanced Settings. Is Ultra DMA
there in the Current Transfer Mode? If it's PIO, see if you can change
it. If you can't change it, you'll need to go into the BIOS to change it.

M

 

[Tim Rude]

Try these:

http://www.ubcd4win.com

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

 

[meerkat]

Try these:

http://www.ubcd4win.com

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

I`ll second that suggestion.

 

[Ed from AZ]

Does one of these already exist?

http://www.ubcd4win.com

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Thanks for these!! I *knew* that _I_ couldn't be the one with this
idea first!!

And I will have her check the DMA/PIO setting as soon as possible. I
did find this to help with that issue:
http://winhlp.com/node/10

Thanks again!!
Ed

 

[Ed from AZ]

PIO it was!! The Properties dialog didn't let me change it there, so
tonight's adventure is to get it fixed.

Thanks all!
Ed

 

[Bob I]

Is DMA selected but it is reverted to PIO?

 

[Ed from AZ]

Is DMA selected but it is reverted to PIO?

Yes - if I remember, it said something like "DMA if available", but
the Current Mode box said PIO.

Ed

 

[Bob I]

Remove the channel it is on and then "Scan for hardware" to reinstall
with DMA again.

 

[smlunatick]

 >http://www.ubcd4win.com

 >http://www.ultimatebootcd.com

Thanks for these!!  I *knew* that _I_ couldn't be the one with this
idea first!!

And I will have her check the DMA/PIO setting as soon as possible.  I
did find this to help with that issue:http://winhlp.com/node/10

Thanks again!!
Ed

What is the motherboard? Some motherboards require an updated chipset
drivers in order to correctly provide the DMA (UltraDMA) driver as
part of the IDE / ATAPI module.

 

[Ed from AZ]

Okay - I am going to scream out my ignorance here:

Remove the channel it is on and then "Scan for hardware" to reinstall
with DMA again.

This is the only hard drive. If I "remove the channel" (I assume
there's options for doin that in that panel??) which will force the
machine to have to search for it again, won't that kill the machine?
I mean, isn't all that on the hard drive which the machine now can't
find??

Ed

 

[M]

Okay - I am going to scream out my ignorance here:



This is the only hard drive. If I "remove the channel" (I assume
there's options for doin that in that panel??) which will force the
machine to have to search for it again, won't that kill the machine?
I mean, isn't all that on the hard drive which the machine now can't
find??

Ed

No, it will work. I did it the other day.

M

 

[Ed from AZ]

Well, I didn't have to. I first ran the script on the web site I
referred to earlier -and it did the trick.

And just to keep with the original topic, I downloaded the files for
the UltimateBootCD. I'm sure I will need them some day!

Thanks to all!
Ed

 

[Bob I]

It reloads the IDE Channel and sets the interface to DMA. The "drive"
itself isn't removed.