System Restore error / General Performance problems

[Dan]

I am have some performance issues with a machine running
XP Pro.

Every so often (at least once or twice an hour)
everything will become VERY unresposive: ie - taking
several seconds, upto a minute or two to respond to a
simple command, like navigating the start menu, closing a
window, switching applications, etc.

This all started happening after (or during to me more
accurate) I tried downloading SP2 yesterday. The
progress bar showed that it was "Preparing for download"
or something to that effect and it got to 100% and then
nothing happened. After about an hour I cancelled the
download and Windows Update told me that SP2 failed to
install.

I was wary of trying again because of the way the
computer started acting right after that. So I figured I
would use System Restore to put Windows back to a point
before the SP2 download and then I would try again.

But now System Restore is saying that it cannot restore
the system to any of the points that I select. I tried 4
or 5 points all with the same results. It just says that
it could not do the restore and that no changes were made
to the system.

This machine has been running fine for the past 8-9
months (when I first built it). I regularly defragment,
run spyware removal tools, have a firewall and antivirus
software, etc. so there shouldn't be any of those kind
of problems.

So I checked the Event Viewer and found a ton of these:

The device, \Device\Harddisk0\D, has a bad block.

And a couple of these:

The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort0, did not respond within
the timeout period.

An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D
during a paging operation.

The driver has detected that device \Device\Ide\IdePort0
has old or out-of-date firmware. Reduced performance may
result.

So does that definitely mean I have a bad drive? Or
could it just be a loose (or defective) IDE cable or
something? Are all those errors referring to the system
drive?

I'm not sure what to do at this point.

 

[Carl]

Hi Dan
I am no MVP or anything on those lines.Just a retired old fart playin on his
PC a lot.
Windows XP PRO.
Being as you don't have any updates installed yet i would just do a repair
install.
You don't lose any of your personal data , just windows files are replaced.
It will wipe out all updates if you have any.
Boot from XP CD and do your thing.
Hope this is helpfull.

 

[Guest]

Do you have any Anti-Virus application?
Do you have a Spyware application?

If no to either make sure you have them installed. Then do the following.

1. Update AV definitions and run a full scan.
2. Update Spyware definitions and run a full scan.
3. Delete any Virus / Worm / Trojan and any spyware material.
4. Do a Disk Cleanup to get rid of all the crap
5. Do a disk defrag to sort out and orgainse the files on the hard drive
6. restart the PC and try to do your XP updates

Running such Windows utilities as Scandisk, Disk Defragment and Disk Cleanup
will help your computer performing at its best. Spyware removers and Anti
Virus keep out the nasties.