My Windows XP/PC is fully freezing, and neither restarting nor Norton GoBack are working. Any suggestions?

Question

I also can on about every 10th try get my windows to load, but then all of a sudden EVERYTHING will freeze, no keyboard, mouse, Ctrl-Alt-Delete, will work. I can't seem to keep anything on for more than a few minutes, and then either it will freeze or shut down. I would love to try and fix this without reformatting, and would really appreciate some help.

OKay, I know how to reformat, but I have 80 GB of media and don't know an easy way, that would be another way I could get help, any suggestions on how to easily backup that much media (mostly songs and videos.) I also have a hard time identifying which files should be saved in order to backup, are there guidelines?

Can anyone confirm that excessive dust can cause this? If that is possible then that is definitely the problem!

Answer 1

Could be a number of issues, such as virus or damaged files.
If it 's a virus, prepare a thumb drive or CD with the following:
o An anti-virus tool or two such as AVG or Avast.
o An anti-adware tool such as Spybot or MS Windows Defender
For repair of damaged files:
o XP installation CD

o Try to boot in Safe mode: "Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard." see MS kb 31522, below.
o Run the antivirus tools.
o Run msconfig.exe to see what processes are running at startup. Better yet, try the free utility HijackThis, which lists all processes, and get some help at one of the forums for that tool.

Reviving a PC may be time consuming and difficult; you might look for some help on this process (it's probably beyond the expertise of personnel at the major computer store chains, but you might be lucky, or get a recommendation for a good technician).

Answer 2

I'd try rthis first: Try restarting in safe mode (by pressing F8) and then remove any recently installed programs, run a virus scan, the try to reboot normally. If it still happens, restart in safe mode again and do a system restore. You may have to do this several times if you have more than one restore point to get it working properly.

Hopefully it's just a software problem and not a hardware failure. If it still won't work, come back here with an update and see if we have more suggestions

Goodluck

PS. Save important files after virus scan... while in safe mode (if you can)

Answer 3

Well if you know how to reformat it reformat it.
If you have important data,back it up and then install a good anti virus like Kaspersky Free Trial etc.
Then it should stop freezing.
If your processor is a pentium III and you only have 20 GB of Hard Disk space, then I don't know how to fix it.

Answer 4

ought to be hardware or maybe BIOS appropriate. have you ever checked the motherboard boards to work out if others have had the subject? perhaps a BIOS replace will help (yet provided which you hit upon postings describing a matching subject). My next theory could be to make particular the capacity grant is able to helping your configuration. perhaps with the aid of fact the gadget is setting up, the gadget starts to charm to greater capacity and it fluctuates and reasons the hangup. If underpowered, the gadget can run slightly warmer. After that, are you able to're to establish that the factors are all seated wisely? attempt to reseat the memory and video card and run with the aid of back. If that fails, could be time to touch the motherboard broking promptly for help. Given you have tried with distinctive drives and the two IDE and SATA, i don't think of it rather is a disk appropriate subject.

Answer 5

freezing usually means heat or too many processes. Open up the brain and blow out the dust bunnies. then is it finally works then goto>start>run>type msconfig > startup tab> disable all.

Answer 6

try to use system restore