Can I uninstall the "C" drive driver?

[Don]

I think I'm having troubles with my "C" drive. If I "uninstall" the
driver for it, will the drive be viewed as "new hardware" upon boot,
and the driver for it be installed?

Thanks,
Don

 

[Newtechie]

Hi Don,

There is really no 'driver' per se for a hard drive. Why don't you explain
to us the problem
you're having and maybe we can assist you further.

Newtechie

 

[Don]

Hi Don,

There is really no 'driver' per se for a hard drive. Why don't you explain
to us the problem
you're having and maybe we can assist you further.

Newtechie

For months now the performance of the system is extremely slow when it
involves significant I/O with the "C" drive. I can't even copy a 10
MB folder to the "D" drive without it taking forever. I run Norton,
Spybot, Adaware, Spy Sweeper, SpyBlaster, CWShredder, and nothing
finds anything that fixes the problem. Just copying 64 MB to a USB
jump drive takes over an hour. I'm running a Pentium 3.2 GZ on an HP
m390n. Using Windows XP Media Center 2004. I'm getting tired of
this, and as much as I hate to do it, am about to rebuild the system.

Sure could use some help.
Thanks, Don

 

[Shenan Stanley]

For months now the performance of the system is extremely slow when it
involves significant I/O with the "C" drive. I can't even copy a 10
MB folder to the "D" drive without it taking forever. I run Norton,
Spybot, Adaware, Spy Sweeper, SpyBlaster, CWShredder, and nothing
finds anything that fixes the problem. Just copying 64 MB to a USB
jump drive takes over an hour. I'm running a Pentium 3.2 GZ on an HP
m390n. Using Windows XP Media Center 2004. I'm getting tired of
this, and as much as I hate to do it, am about to rebuild the system.

Sure could use some help.
Thanks, Don

What type of hard drive is it?
How many partitions is the physical drive split into?
How much free space on the C drive?
Last time you used "Disk Cleanup"? (and what you did?)
Last time you CHKDSK'd/DEFRAG'd the drive(s)?
What type of USB ports do you have? (1.1 or 2.0?)
You mentioned NORTON.. If, when you are copying, you disable it during the
act - does it speed up any?
Have you checked for chipset/controller driver updates?

 

[Don]

What type of hard drive is it?
How many partitions is the physical drive split into?
How much free space on the C drive?
Last time you used "Disk Cleanup"? (and what you did?)
Last time you CHKDSK'd/DEFRAG'd the drive(s)?
What type of USB ports do you have? (1.1 or 2.0?)
You mentioned NORTON.. If, when you are copying, you disable it during the
act - does it speed up any?
Have you checked for chipset/controller driver updates?

HI Shenan,

I've been through all the things you outlined above, but still no answer. I'm probably going to
have to re-install everything. I hate having to do that, what a job.

Thanks,
Don

 

[Shenan Stanley]

For months now the performance of the system is extremely slow when
it involves significant I/O with the "C" drive. I can't even copy
a 10 MB folder to the "D" drive without it taking forever. I run
Norton, Spybot, Adaware, Spy Sweeper, SpyBlaster, CWShredder, and
nothing finds anything that fixes the problem. Just copying 64 MB
to a USB jump drive takes over an hour. I'm running a Pentium 3.2
GZ on an HP m390n. Using Windows XP Media Center 2004. I'm
getting tired of this, and as much as I hate to do it, am about to
rebuild the system.

What type of hard drive is it?
How many partitions is the physical drive split into?
How much free space on the C drive?
Last time you used "Disk Cleanup"? (and what you did?)
Last time you CHKDSK'd/DEFRAG'd the drive(s)?
What type of USB ports do you have? (1.1 or 2.0?)
You mentioned NORTON.. If, when you are copying, you disable it
during the act - does it speed up any?
Have you checked for chipset/controller driver updates?

I've been through all the things you outlined above, but still no
answer. I'm probably going to have to re-install everything. I hate
having to do that, what a job.

I have a suggestion or two left in me..

I would suggest - since you are going to be redoing your system - using
Ghost or some other imaging software and another drive (external drive
maybe.. Network drive maybe..) to GHOST your entire system... then..

Before redoing things from scratch - get a disk diagnostics diskette/cd
image from the hard drive manufacturers web site and test it - then wipe it
(write zeros to it, low-level format - whatever options they give you to
obliterate it at a lower level than a format would) and apply the image to
your machine. It will overwrite (but in a very orderly way) everything
there - and perhaps resolve your issue.

Secondly - you are guaranteed a full backup (without worry of loss) of
everything on your system this way.

Something else to consider is customizing an installation CD/DVD before you
begin.
http://unattended.msfn.org is a great start to start with to do this. You
could make a Windows XP CD that installs with SP2 and all current patches,
not to mention you could add whatever applications you want to the CD to be
automatically installed - so you have less work to do in the future.

 

[Don]

I have a suggestion or two left in me..

I would suggest - since you are going to be redoing your system - using
Ghost or some other imaging software and another drive (external drive
maybe.. Network drive maybe..) to GHOST your entire system... then..

Before redoing things from scratch - get a disk diagnostics diskette/cd
image from the hard drive manufacturers web site and test it - then wipe it
(write zeros to it, low-level format - whatever options they give you to
obliterate it at a lower level than a format would) and apply the image to
your machine. It will overwrite (but in a very orderly way) everything
there - and perhaps resolve your issue.

Secondly - you are guaranteed a full backup (without worry of loss) of
everything on your system this way.

Something else to consider is customizing an installation CD/DVD before you
begin.
http://unattended.msfn.org is a great start to start with to do this. You
could make a Windows XP CD that installs with SP2 and all current patches,
not to mention you could add whatever applications you want to the CD to be
automatically installed - so you have less work to do in the future.

You've got some really great ideas there Shenan.
However, I've just found "cleanmgr.exe" was consumming 100% of the CPU while I was trying to do
other things. I've read a bit on the internet that some people have found that file infected with a
virus that results in the same symptoms as I have. Do you know anything about that?

Don

 

[Shenan Stanley]

For months now the performance of the system is extremely slow when
it involves significant I/O with the "C" drive. I can't even copy
a 10 MB folder to the "D" drive without it taking forever. I run
Norton, Spybot, Adaware, Spy Sweeper, SpyBlaster, CWShredder, and
nothing finds anything that fixes the problem. Just copying 64 MB
to a USB jump drive takes over an hour. I'm running a Pentium 3.2
GZ on an HP m390n. Using Windows XP Media Center 2004. I'm
getting tired of this, and as much as I hate to do it, am about to
rebuild the system.

What type of hard drive is it?
How many partitions is the physical drive split into?
How much free space on the C drive?
Last time you used "Disk Cleanup"? (and what you did?)
Last time you CHKDSK'd/DEFRAG'd the drive(s)?
What type of USB ports do you have? (1.1 or 2.0?)
You mentioned NORTON.. If, when you are copying, you disable it
during the act - does it speed up any?
Have you checked for chipset/controller driver updates?

I've been through all the things you outlined above, but still no
answer. I'm probably going to have to re-install everything. I
hate having to do that, what a job.

I have a suggestion or two left in me..

I would suggest - since you are going to be redoing your system -
using Ghost or some other imaging software and another drive
(external drive maybe.. Network drive maybe..) to GHOST your entire
system... then..

Before redoing things from scratch - get a disk diagnostics
diskette/cd image from the hard drive manufacturers web site and
test it - then wipe it (write zeros to it, low-level format -
whatever options they give you to obliterate it at a lower level
than a format would) and apply the image to your machine. It will
overwrite (but in a very orderly way) everything there - and perhaps
resolve your issue.

Secondly - you are guaranteed a full backup (without worry of loss)
of everything on your system this way.

Something else to consider is customizing an installation CD/DVD
before you begin.
http://unattended.msfn.org is a great start to start with to do
this. You could make a Windows XP CD that installs with SP2 and all
current patches, not to mention you could add whatever applications
you want to the CD to be automatically installed - so you have less
work to do in the future.

You've got some really great ideas there Shenan.
However, I've just found "cleanmgr.exe" was consumming 100% of the
CPU while I was trying to do other things. I've read a bit on the
internet that some people have found that file infected with a virus
that results in the same symptoms as I have. Do you know anything
about that?

What I ran into that may help...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/812248

and/or

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
(#48, right side - Disk Cleanup-Compress Old Files Freezes-Undo)