Windows Vista Please help!! Hard drive pegging at 100%, tried all I can think of

[S2K5150]

Hi all,

Hopefully you all can help me, as I've tried everything I can think of and my C: drive is running at 100% for the first 10 minutes after boot,, then sometimes goes back to 0 and is completely unresponsive or very slow. I've downloaded multuple virus scanners, malaware, spyware, and found pretty much nothing..I tried taking off microsft essentials and it didn't completely uninstall. I tried reinstalling and get an error that the wizard can't start.. I followed all the suggestions from forums and frrom Microsoft and nothing. The error code it gives is:
'0x80070643'. I've made sure thal only programs I want to start are starting. I also tried to get uninstall 'MS Live', and for whatever reason half of the software didn't install...That's why I only install MS updates and software that I want, as I don't need or want MS Live or MS Security Essentials. I got rid of all my other anti spyware, malaware, virus scanner, as that's what Microsoft said to do with that eorror code I got from trying to reinstalling MSE. Only reason I wanted to reinstall iit is so I could try and uninstall it completely. I looked at the performance monitor and found these two files/directorys doing a ton of R/W on my drive.
C:\Windows\System32\config\RegBack\COMPONETS
c:\$Logfile

I don't use 'System Restore' as I've found over the years it doesn't work most of the time..My old HD was giving me read errors, so I bought 'EasyToDo Back' software to help me image my HD on the new..That was cake.This software comes with a 'snapshot' componet like system restore, but works 99% of the time and brings back everything, files, etc. .I now have a WD Black Scorpio that's being beaten up by 'something' on my machine. I'm pretty well versed with Windows, but I can't figure it out..If I had my Vista CD, I'd do a complete wipe and rieinstall.This problem started before the new drive. At this momment my cursor is now jumping around every 1-2 minutes while I type screwing up what I wrote. No virus's or malaware last time I checked, but I'm running wide open as of now to try to uninstall MSE..I also have 3 serivces that I can't get ride of..I can't control them, but they are listed after I uninstalled the program..Not sure what the 'Andrea' service came with...I even used 'Recuva Uninstaller' that helps with deleting reg keys left over, but they are still there..'Amazon Unbox', Andrea ST Filer Service, and Microsoft Antimalaware Service...I've taken out the battery, memory and let it still..I've done everything that I've know and suggestions from others.My laptop is a Dell Inspiron 1525 and all the hardware is solid. I did do some dell updates for my service tag a few months back and remember having some 'hanging' issues, so I rolled back those installs. I also deleted 2 profiles, as one got corrupted and other was having issues, so I wanted to try a new profile to see if that fixed my problems..Admin rights of course..I've also going into the 'hidden' admin acct..I'm glad I found about it as most don't know it's there and it has no pword..Big security issue.. Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give you all the details. I uploaded a log file from Hijack this that I ran right before I posted here.
Thanks for reading....jc

 

[patcooke]

Your original drive, and probably the new one if your imaging software imaged the entire drive, should have a recovery image which you can boot to and run a complete reinstall of your system. Have you tried booting a recovery (on the Inspiron you should get into it by pressing F8 and selecting advance boot options and repair.

 

[S2K5150]

Your original drive, and probably the new one if your imaging software imaged the entire drive, should have a recovery image which you can boot to and run a complete reinstall of your system. Have you tried booting a recovery (on the Inspiron you should get into it by pressing F8 and selecting advance boot options and repair.

I wish it was that easy. For whatever reason that option is missing when I get to the F8 menu. The Easy ToDo Backup software creates a tiny partition when you choose to use its 'Snapshot' option, but I remember trying to use that F8 recovery option before I installed my new drive and was unable to use it. Don't know how that can option just be gone and all the others are there. I just checked and the line where it's supposed to be is black!! Now I'm starting to worry how hosed the OS is screwed up. It works, but not the way it should. Dell won't send me a free CD will they? I didn't get a CD with my desktop and I spent 5 hours arguing with people who could barely speak English to eventually have one sent. The machine didn't come with one, so I was baffled how come they wanted to charge me. It was XP Media Center, so that won't work here. OS 7 and 8 are to expensive, plus I don't know what's wrong and I could bring the problem with me. Not to mention a huge driver hassle for a plain OS. Any other ideas?

 

[patcooke]

I know there were signs of problems with the original drive but I'd try reinstalling it to see if you can boot recovery from there. If you can boot a recovery you should then have the option to burn recovery disks for future insurance. (If you ask Dell to supply disks that is probably what they will tell you). If you cannot manage a recovery then whilst Dell are unlikely to supply them for free they should have a facility to supply them at a reasonable cost.

 

[Saltgrass]

The path you reference are the registry backup files. It seems, for some reason, something is accessing them. The Hijack this log shows you have removed the files for a program, but not the registry entries, such as MSE. So it appears something might be blocking access to the Registry on your system.

Have you run the Dell Diagnostics on the system?

Link Removed

You have several programs on your system I do not have any experience with. But something that watches your system for changes so it can make a backup might be involved. I see you are running EaseUS. As far as I know it works fine for making backup images, but it is running all the time, it could be involved. It also appears you might have other types of update checking programs... you might check those. Have you ever run regedit.exe to look at your registry, are you running a registry monitoring program?

I have a Dell 1545, that originally came with Vista, I run Windows 7 on. I can check the Vista install to see how it re-installs, if necessary. If you could get us a picture of your Disk Management window using the Snipping Tool, if Vista has it, or a screen shot (perhaps crop it with Paint) and attach here using the "More Options" button and "Upload a File" button.

Edit: Do you still have the old drive?

 

[S2K5150]

Yes, I've used regedit plenty of times. I have used Dell Diagnostics, but that was on the old drive. I just reinstalled the old drive hoping F8 would give me the repair option and it's not there as well. Reading in the Dell forums, some Dells that weren't shipped with the OS, also didn't have the 'repair' option using F8. They needed to use the recovery disc and then go to the command prompt to get to the recovery partition. I'm not sure what discs I got as this machine in 08-09. I don't have the Dell 'data safe' program on the old drive and no option to make a recovery CD. Looking at the Disk Management on the old drive it doesn't show any partitions that would be used for recovery or repair. I did install that EasyTo image backup software on the old drive as well. It creates a 'on the fly' partition for its 'snapshot' component. I could choose the size from my free space, so no partitions should of been deleted. Shouldn't any Dell partitions show up using the disk management component? I never messed with the old drive. I may have the OS and all the Dell drivers, but they'd be in storage. Looking in that systems32 directory where that 'component' file was the culprit pegging my HD, I found .bak .iosbit and .gs copy for System, Software, and Security. I know it's all registry files the .iosbit is from the Iosbit advanced system tools I once used and the .gs if from Glary 3 Utilities. So I don't know what to do now. I basically need my registry fixed, which is the OS in a sense. Any other ideas? I've used Eusing, and Registry Pro, but that's always been for maintenance. So frustrating. I should just stick with my IPhone, but I want this fixed.

 

[patcooke]

I suspect you're going to end up going to Dell for a recovery disk.

 

[S2K5150]

I suspect you're going to end up going to Dell for a recovery disk.

Will that have the OS and Dell drivers? I don't understand why Dell made a poor business decision of not including the OS and all the software on discs. They are dirt cheap, no added shipping with the machine. It costs a ton more for tech support folks, even if they are in India. Everyone complains about this subject. I like Dell in general and they build solid PC's. I've owned a bunch and at work have dealt with 100's. I'll never make the mistake again of not having a full backup image on my own discs and or external drive.

 

[S2K5150]

By the way, thank you all for your quick and helpful advice. Great forum!! I'm going to dig through my storage unit next week and hopefully find my discs. I'd like to ditch Vista and go to 7, but its too expensive. It costs half of what a low end Win8 PC does at Costco.

 

[Saltgrass]

Below I have attached a Disk Management picture of the Vista install on my Inspiron 1545. I did not receive the laptop originally, so not sure exactly what was included with it, but I think I do remember a Drivers CD. Anyway, you can see the Recovery partition, which may not actually have a drive letter on it in your system and a small partition at the front. This drive is currently in a dock and not actually in the computer. If you are not sure if your drive is the same, to check you could open an admin command prompt and use the following commands to check for partitions. I will assume that 0 is the number of your hard drive from the lis dis command so it is used to select the drive.

Diskpart
lis dis
sel dis 0
lis par
exit

The small partition holds a form of DOS Dell uses to run their utilities and of course the Recovery Partition holds the actual Windows Install Files, not an image. If your drive does not show these things, either it was configured using a different system, or you removed the Recovery partition and did a clean install some time in the past.

 

[patcooke]

I suspect you're going to end up going to Dell for a recovery disk.
Will that have the OS and Dell drivers? I don't understand why Dell made a poor business decision of not including the OS and all the software on discs. They are dirt cheap, no added shipping with the machine. It costs a ton more for tech support folks, even if they are in India. Everyone complains about this subject. I like Dell in general and they build solid PC's. I've owned a bunch and at work have dealt with 100's. I'll never make the mistake again of not having a full backup image on my own discs and or external drive.

A recovery disk is normally an image of the system drive and will have all required drivers etc pre-installed. It just needs to be booted from the optical drive and 20 minutes later you'll be back to like new, up and running.

 

[S2K5150]

How much does 1 of those discs cost? What's the best way of acquiring? I assume calling Dell. Also, since my registry is what's hosed up, is there any program out there that can repair my reg issues. I know there are a ton of freeware regcleaners/repair tools and software for sale, but most can only do minor cleanup and repairs. Looking for something to fix major issues. I don't usually ever buy software, as most of the time it doesn't do what it claims, but I'm happy to buy software that works like it should. Ie. EasyUS ToDo Home Backup. Thanks.

 

[patcooke]

This is probably as good a place as any to start:

Link Removed

The registry will be reset to factory settings along with everything else if you run a full recovery.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi S2K:
I've run into this problem before with older Inspiron's. The real problem here is that you have changed the original Windows OS from Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 or earlier to Vista. If you got the laptop in 2008-2009 and you admitted you weren't the original owner, that's why you didn't get the discs. Someone upgraded it and didn't include those--amateur!

I ran into a similar problem earlier this year with a Sony Vaio circa 2005; and it took me like 7 weeks to rebuild it. It's a long story, but, if your Inspiron has a sticker on the keyboard surface somewhere that says "Vista" ready, the Vista you have on there should work properly. That is if it was installed correctly, and from everything you have indicated it wasn't.

First of all, only a few manufacturer's provided a Recovery Partition for Windows XP MCE 2005; and as far as I can tell, Sony was one who did not. I've seen eMachines and 1 or 2 others who have; but most did not. If you call Dell for the Recovery Media for this laptop, chances are they don't have it any longer. Dell and most of the big guys don't archive Recovery Media sets older than about 4 years or so. Occasionally, you'll get one that's 5 or 6 years old, but only if it was a very popular selling model. The Inspirons were/are very popular, but like I said it's doubtful they still have it even in Archive form.

To answer your cost question; Recovery Media sets run from $15-$99 from Dell and just about anyone else. And, Yes, you can call them to search for the Set for your Model laptop. I order these all the time from them.

If you are lucky enough to get the Recovery Media, and install it you will then find out if your Inspiron model originally came with a Recovery Partition or not, as it will attempt to format your hard drive, wipe it clean (make sure to answer "YES" to this question if it asks you to wipe out the current Partition Table on your hard drive), and then it will recreate all partitions that were on the laptop when it came from the Factory ("Out-Of-Box, or OOB condidtion"). This most likely will include a Dell Diagnostic partition with which you can test your hardware such as hard drive, CPU, RAM memory, etc.

If you aren't lucky you'll have to look at doing a Custom rebuild to Vista; which will completely bypass the WindowsXP MCE 2005 factory build. This can take some skill, and usually takes me several weeks to accomplish; but I've been doing this for 26 yrs.

What you will need is to buy a Full Box Version of Windows Vista *Home Basic, Home Edition, Ultimate, Professional* whichever one you had on there from the person you bought or got your laptop from. This can cost anywhere from $80-$150 on the web as you can only buy Vista there, it's been out of retail stores since 2009 when Windows7 replaced it.

The other thing you will need is to go to support.dell.com and download all the Windows Vista Drivers for your Inspiron. Most importantly you will have to do a BIOS and CHIPSET upgrade to that Inpiron in order to get Vista to work correctly with it, and without the *Vista Ready* sticker I mentioned above, it's only even money that it will work at all. Also, the BIOS and CHIPSET flash upgrades are VERY HIGH RISK to do! If you have never done them before, I don't suggest you make this your first time. On the other hand, you sound knowledgeable to you can try--be aware though if you do it wrong you can "brick" your Motherboard and wind up replacing the most expensive component in that laptop.

I Post this with the Hope that you get lucky and Dell will sell you an Archived Recovery Media set, and the last half of this you won't have to worry about. However, if you have built computers for a while, I would strongly urge you to do the BIOS & CHIPSET upgrades prior to applying the Recovery Media set. Especially since you intend to bring it back up to Vista level.

If you have any hesitation in doing this, STOP! and take your laptop to a local Computer Pro who is licensed and can do this for you. This process is for the Advanced User only. I'm not saying you are not; but, if you haven't done this many times before you might be looking at a $200-$300 repair on an 8 year old laptop--probably not worth it since you can buy a brand new Chromebook for $249. The other thing you haven't addresses is the state of your internal hardware, Mobo, RAM, Hard Drive, and CPU/GPU. Those should all be tested before you attempt this upgrade, as reinstalling from Recovery Media Set or from a Boxed Windows Vista CD will still not operate correctly if you have a faulty hardware component. In a second-hand laptop of that age, the likelyhood is statistically significant there is at least 1 failing or faulty component. And once again I am back to taking it to a Pro if you are not comfortable with or know how to run all the complex tests I'm talking about.

Hope this provides some insight and direction for you.

Post back if you need further advice!

BIGBEARJEDI