My current home computer is finally telling me - It's time for a new one.

It is a Dell 266 (about 5 years old) - it does (did) what I need it to do, but the other night something very bad happened.

For some backgroud, I've been having trouble with getting the maching to power-off properly the last 2 months or so. Often, I have to shut it off via the power button because it gets into the loop of telling me programs aren't responding. But, it ran fine for my purposes (surfing the net, using Quicken and MS Office).

So, the other night the hard drive started churning and it wouldn't stop. The computer got real slow and it was difficult to get it to shut down.

I didn't think much of it at the time, but last night I wanted to work on a MS Office (Excel) file and it told me that the file format was not recognized. I noticed that all the MS Office files that I have were all modified at about the time my computer had the problem with the hard drive running.

I emailed a file to work to see if it would open here and it says the same error message. So, I think I'm F'ed.

Anyone have any ideas??? Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

A couple of ideas....

1). A corrupted file that messes up your spreadsheets in Excel.

2). A messed up OS that needs to be re-installed.

3). A virus of some sort.

4). A messed up hard-drive.

If you can, send me an Excel file via email to my work address, so that I may be able eliminate one of the things above. If you would like for me to take a look at the computer, just let me know.

 

Luder -

I'll get you a file, but it won't be until next week probably. I won't be home for a couple of days.

Thanks for the help

 

I'll say it's a hard drive collision, just from what you said, the churning hard drive sound (clicking or clunking?) I would run a surface scan using Scandisk to see if you have any bad clusters. This might help, but you'll probably need a new hard drive.

 

Windows has a tendency to get corrupted over time. The fact that you've been having to shut it off manually instead of it shutting itself off (I'm assuming it used to do that?) is an indication that something wasn't quite right. Each time you shut it off using the power button any files open at the time, including application files and Windows OS files, can possibly become corrupt. This tends to have a mushrooming effect where as it gets slightly more corrupted you have more problems which cause more corruption which cause more problems etc. until usually the end result is something like you're describing. I can't tell you what's going on with your files but I would guess that there's something significant going on with MS Office and/or the OS. I would suggest reloading both MS Office and the Windows OS. There's a possibility of a hard disk problem although I'd reload the s/w first and see if the hard disk still seems to be having trouble.

 

I had a real similar problem. I would turn on the computer and it might take btw. 30sec-1min to finish booting up. Sometimes real quick. When I turn it off sometimes it would take 1min sometimes 5. Until one day I waited like 30 min. and it never turned on. So, I contacted Dell support and they told me my motherboard is messed up somehow so they sent me another one under warranty. I switched the motherboards and it made no difference! (talk about technical support )You know what the problem was? My mouse was broken...I replaced it and that problem was gone. But now I have other problems.

 

I guess I'm concerned about all the files that are potentially "toast". I didn't have alot but some stuff was important.

I can always get a new computer if this one is really fried, I can't re-create the files that were on there.

 

I think this indicates a good possibily that you have a virus. Do you have any anti-virus software installed on that PC? If I were you, I would buy another hard drive (who doesn't need a newer, bigger hard drive?), and a good anti-virus package. Reinstall the OS from scratch on the new hard drive, and then temporarily wire the old drive as the slave drive. Run the anti-virus software on the old drive and let it clean everything. Then copy over what files you need from the old drive and disconnect it. Stick in on a shelf somewhere because if it's 5 years old, I'm guessing it's only around 1.2 gigs in size at the most. Pretty useless.

If you want to spend more money, get a new PC instead of just a new hard drive. Repeat steps above. Get a CD-R/RW drive and start backing up the important stuff.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by CBeyond
[B]I think this indicates a good possibily that you have a virus.

 

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