Yes I am thinking of sending you some Fred

That avast anti-virus is brilliant though although it scares me to death when it 'speaks' and says that the database has been updated, I have never had a speaking anti-virus before but I like that little blue ball that keeps spinning round, its very therapeutic

I'd say reformatting is the way to go...I do mine all the time! Can't believe someone would charge £40 it only takes minuets (it's the saving of everything first that takes the time!) and then to take two weeks!!...

Anyway it is different for all PC's but all easy enough. (For instance my PC has no disks I just press F10 I think and it starts from there!) Lots of older PC's have rescue disks with a format option on them that you choose and go from there...You can also formatt a PC that needs these disks even if you have lost them So long as you have an operating system to reinstall and the disks to the programmes you use if you want to put them back on.

Maybe Fred could help with step by step instructions??

Hiya Foxy

From what you have earlier said-i think your pc has a virus or possibly more than one.Doing a system restore will take the pc back to when you first bought it and shouldnt require service pack 2 being re-installed.If you do a system restore,go onto www.msn.co.uk afterwards and allow them to scan your pc to see what critical upgrades it needs.Altering your settings to do "automatic update" is best because it will download them as and when needed.Click on 'start',then onto 'control panel' and then click on automatic updates.The box beside the green armour thing should be ticked and you can also change the time for it to check for updates.Always make sure your firewall is on and never open email attachments from peeps you dont know.

Once your pc is all clear,scan the photos you hold on disc with your current anti-virus software to ensure these do not have a virus attached-otherwise all your hard work will be wasted!

Viruses are awful things.That W32 Blasterworm i caught few years back didnt show up on virus scan because it was already on laptop before i put Norton on and it reconfigured the scan to ignore it as a threat.I ended up doing a systen restore which cured the masses of problems (wouldnt shut down,kept dialing up,warnings popping up on screen from OP system etc),but needed many many critical updates installing after.Microsoft do have 'patches' available for when viruses have created havoc which does save doing a restore,but not guaranteed to solve a problem.

Every so often,i click onto www.symantec.com and get them to do a full system scan.Their software is far superior to those available at PC World or freebies over the net,but will require you to download a tool to instigate a scan.Symantec are the peeps who supply Norton with their virus defintions.

Good luck!

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the above information O/H has taken it to PC world again tonight but they aren't interested in helping us to get it right at all. They said that they don't do that sort of thing and we can do it ourselves
They told him to restore the system and to just keep pressing F11 and it will take you back to the factory settings. I haven't a clue what they are on about and where I should be to start pressing F11

I have gone into system restore and it won't even do this It says the last restore point is 17th August 2005 and will go back no further than this. I have tried pressing the arrows at the sides to get it to go to previous month but it won't.

They said that it might be wanadoos problem, but I can't see how it can be when we know that everything works on the computer upstairs (when brought downstairs) and my laptop so its not really their fault if our computer is not up to scratch is it They also suggested that our computer might not have enough ram. Well it is a 512mb DDR266 intel (R)Pentium (R) 4 CPU with CPU speed 2533 mhz and cache size 512kb so I can't see why it can't accept broadband.

I am absolutely fed up and tired of it now so I think I will give up and go back to watching the telly, its a lot less stressful than the internet When dial up runs out in another week we will only have broadband and unless I access it off my laptop we can't have it. The problem with that is that I don't want my son using my laptop because he doesn't look after things and I am scared he might break it and I know there will be major rows if they can't get on MSN at all. Think I will leave home!


Thanks everybody for all the help you have given me over the past few weeks you are all wonderful

I had this problem with my pc a while ago. I installed the new msn7 and msn plus and they screwed up the pc. I could not delete them or install programs and it would not let me do a system restore as there was only a restore point for that day.

Ended up I had to save all I could and wipe the pc and start again with my recovery discs.

Hi Foxy, I wouldn't do a system restore, as you might just take it back to where the virus etc was first on your computer. It is best to do an destructive format then no viruses etc can survive. I think that either Graeme or Fred may back me up on this.

If you would like to try and completely cleann of your pc, follow the instructins that are below:-

Here’s a detailed plan of what to do to reformat your drive.

1. Save all your photos, documents and passwords etc that you want to keep onto either CD or floppy.
2. Go through your hard disk for anything that you may have overlooked.
3. Get all your original program CD’s etc together making sure you have got everything.
4. Insert the recovery disk into your CD drive and close down your PC.
5. Wait about 1 minute then start up you computer, you’ll be asked if you want to go into recovery, the usual response is to press the ‘R’ key, this will take you into a new part of windows.
6. You will be asked if you want to do a quick format, or a full destructive format, opt for the destructive one – this sounds bad but it isn’t it just wiped everything including most viruses off your hard disk.
7. Follow the prompts that come on screen.
8. After a while you should have a windows system that is the way it was when you bought your machine.
9. Start installing all your programs again and hopefully your problems will be gone.

I often do this to my machine, maybe as often as once a month, it’s suprising what junk you accumulate.

But before you do this, just in case I have missed anything out, check with Fred, I’m sure he will confirm what I have just wrote.

Fingers crossed

Ian

Thanks Ian

I decided to be brave and try it but then at the last minute chickened out because it said that I had to have some discs ready to put back on again and I hadn't a clue which they were I'm too scared to do it because I am scared of totally wrecking the computer

So long as you have the cd of the operating system to put back on there and any cd's of other programes you use you can't go to wrong, it will all just be wiped the you re-install...(After you have backed up all your pictures and documents that you want to keep etc)

Newer computers often don't supply the operating system on disk any more but it is in a partitioned section of the hard drive and it reinstalls it's self from there.

Do you have any of the original books / user manuals that came with the PC that really helps as 9 x's out of 10 they tell you how to do it for your individual PC...The trouble is that as knowledgeable as any of us here are, you know that PC better than us and you know what you use on it ect and what disks you have to reinstall with...So as much as we can tell you we wont know everything...It would be good if you could find the user guides.

If you can't find the books I think the next best step is to gather all original disks for the PC and come back here and tell us what they are so we can check that you will have what you need to get it back up and running

Also, sorry if I have missed it but what is the year and model of the computer?

don´t you dare the PC you have you want to keep because you like the case don´t blame you if you go down to the PC shop get a new hard drive they are cheap now get your OH to put it in you can even put it in yourself put the original CD in install everything fresh after about 2 hours of work you will back on DW the old hard drive you can use as a storage and take your files, pictures of when you need them later, when you have installed the new one with an anti virus protection to reformat a hard drive is not always the answer you can damage it so you can´t use it anymore and it lands in the dustbin if you do decide to get a new HD before you attempt to go on the net i will send you 4 patches you store them on a CD after installing xp put those patches on first before you attempt to connect to the INTERNET if you don´t the chances are high that you get a virus I think this would be the cheapest, and the simple way for you to do it when you have installed xp and on the INTERNET i can set up a remote and help you further with the other things you have had some excellent advice from the others and i have never written so much in a post OK Foxy

Aww thanks Fred (yet again )

It all sounds sooo complicated to my poor old brain. I am running one of those avast scans at the moment to see what it throws up. I just haven't a clue what I am doing at all and everything sounds alien to me and o/h (he's even worse than me )

Will a new hard drive make it like a new computer again? and have you any idea how much one might be? Will it have the same sort of memory on as we have got now? Sorry for all the questions but I am completely thick

O/h has texted me and said that someone he knows is lending him a broadband installer CD rom or something but I can't see what this will do to be honest