I've got a Pentium 4, 3GHz Dell PC with Windows XP. I replaced the 512Mb of RAM with 4Gig and left it at my Dad's house. I went back to my Dad’s and found the PC had been left on by one of my sisters and was 50% of the way through downloading a McAfee update so I left it for about 90mins. When I went back, it was still saying that it was only 50% of the way through the update. This was my first clue that something wasn't right. I tried shutting the PC down through the 'start' menu but a message popped up saying something like: the update isn't finished and so can't shut down. By this time it was late and I had to get home so I left the PC as it was, hoping the update would finish by itself. I called one of my sisters two days later who had a look and saw that it was still at 50%. Now I knew something had gone wrong. I told her to leave it as it was. I went back two days later to find my PC had been switched off. Apparently my other sister pressed and held the 'on' button until it turned off after seeing that the screen was "a funny colour" and moving the mouse had no effect. I packed up the PC and brought it to my flat and set it up but it was acting strangely. First the PC couldn't seem to detect the mouse and keyboard from the USB ports at the back but seemed able to do it from the ports at the front. It also seemed to hang and freeze for long periods. Eventually the USB ports at the back started working again but the hanging, freezing and slow performance persisted. Shockingly, I found that a folder that contained a bunch of .avi video files (some in folders) was now completely empty. Also, most of my .mp3 files and music album folders have disappeared from the My Music folder too! However when I go to 'My Computer', there doesn't seem to be the extra disk space that deleting all the .avi and .mp3 files would have created. My problems started with McAfee so I uninstalled it but all the problems persisted. I replaced the new RAM with the old RAM to see if that was the problem but the result was the same so I switched it back. I then went to 'System Restore' and restored my PC to a state before any of this happened but this hasn't solved anything either! I contacted McAfee support and explained everything that happened but they say that since the problems have persisted after uninstalling their software, they don't believe it is the cause and there's nothing they can do. What is the problem? Can my computer be fixed? Can I get my missing files back?

Hi Dorgus,You may run the McAfee removal tool to uninstall the software completely. Thereafter, reinstall it and check if the issue persists.How to uninstall or reinstall supported McAfee consumer products using the McAfee Consumer Products Removal tool (MCPR.exe)For improving computer’s performance, you may refer this link: Optimize your computer for peak performanceTo find the missing files, you may try to run a search with *.avi or *.mpr in the search box and check if you can find the videos or music files.For more information, refer: How to Search for Files and Folders in Windows XPIf you are not able to find the files, you may use any third party recovery tool to recover the data.Note: This response contains a reference to a third party World Wide Web site. Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. Microsoft does not control these sites and has not tested any software or information found on these sites; therefore, Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there.Hope the information helps. Please post back and let us know.RegardsDebleena SMicrosoft Answers Support EngineerVisit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

Hi Debleena!Thank you so much for responding!I just used MCPR.exe to remove McAfee completely and have rebooted the computer but my PC is still freezing and hanging so I have not been able to reinstall McAfee yet. I am using another computer to write this.In my PC's frozen state I can still move the pointer with the mouse but if I try to open anything - a program or My Documents, for example - nothing happens for a long while. Another way I can tell my PC has frozen is that the clock freezes. When it catches up to the right time, I know that it has unfrozen for the moment until it next freezes again.I forgot to mention that my PC hangs and freezes alot after it has just been turned on/rebooted but I've found that when I have left it for long periods (hours) and come back to it, the performance improves and it stops freezing. However, other odd things happen. For example, I tried to open a folder to access a document and instead of opening, a pop up message appeared telling me something to the effect of: "Drive E: has not been formatted. Format now?" with 'yes' and 'no' buttons. I click 'no' but each time I try to open the folder, the same message appears. My PC has one hard drive which is partitioned into two drives: C: and E: and this message hasn't popped up when I've opened other folders, just that particular one.I tried using search to find my .avi files and .mp3 files when I first realised they were missing but they didn't show up. I also tried using Recuva (http://www.piriform.com/recuva) to find my missing files but again no joy. However, several files that I had intentionally deleted a long time ago came up and were described as 'unrecoverable' because they had been over written by other files. In naming the files which had overwritten the intentionally deleted files, it named a few of the .avi files that I was hoping to find. Could this mean that the files are still there somewhere?When my PC stops freezing I will try and reinstall McAfee and will let you know if this fixes anything. In the mean time I'll be checking here regularly for any more suggestions.Best wishes,Dorgus

Hello. You might consider backing up your data fairly quickly as there may be issues with your hard disk. You can try to repair your HDD using the chkdsk command:http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315265Your data is usually recoverable if it has not been written over. Once it has been written over it is pretty much gone.

Hello Resourceful,Thanks a lot for responding!I tried using the chkdsk command by right-clicking on the hard drive and selecting Properties etc for both the C: and E: drives. I selected the 'Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors' option. In the case of both drives after checking for a while a message box appeared telling me that "Windows was unable to complete the disk check".I then tried using the chkdsk command on drive E: at the command prompt and a message appeared saying: "Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Chkdsk may run if this volume is dismounted first. ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID. Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N)"What does that mean? As I'm not sure I haven't done anything yet. Can you advise?Best wishes,Dorgus

Hello. The chkdsk command needs complete control over the drive/volume it is working on. No other processes or programs can access the drive. So your E: drive appears to have some activity that needs to be shut down before chkdsk can run. Dismounting the drive will do this. Of course, when that drive is dismounted, e.g. no longer available to the system, the process/program causing that activity will no longer function until the drive is mounted again when you reboot. So you can say "Y" to see if chkdsk will run. You can use another switch /X to dismount automatically in place of /F if you have a NTFS formatted drive:http://vlaurie.com/computers2/Articles/chkdsk.htmhttp://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/chkdsk.mspx?mfr=trueBe sure not to disturb or interrupt the chkdsk process. It may take a long time.Another thing you may try to do is type msconfig in a run box. On the "services" tab, check the "Hide all Microsoft services" box and "disable all". Click the apply button. On the "Startup" tab, disable (uncheck)anything linked or you think may be linked to E:. Click the apply button. On the "general" tab, select the selective startup radio button. The system will reboot and of course those programs you have disabled will not run but hopefully the chkdsk will run. Once you are done with the chkdsk, go back and reenable everything and select normal startup on "general" tab. Also, you may experiment a while to see if your "freezing" problems go away when some programs are temporarily inactivated. It will be trial and error but you might be able to trace it to some other program that may have been affected during the McAfee problems.

Hi Resourceful. Thanks for getting back to me.I said 'Y' and ran chkdsk on the E: drive. I saw that there were ALOT of unreadable files before I went to bed and let it run overnight. In the morning I saw that there were ALOT of "Insufficient disk space to hotfix unreadable file XXXX" entries before a final "An unspecified error occurred." entry.I'm beginning to lose hope.I'll run chkdsk on the C: drive while I'm at work and see if I have more luck. I'll try your other suggestions when I get back.

Hello. How much free space does E: drive have? Was the McAfee program located there that you were trying to update? Do you have any idea what program needs to access E:? Inactivating that program probably will stop the freezing. But it doesn't look good for that drive and you should back up any data you need from that. It may be difficult to determine if the HDD has physically crashed if you aren't really experiencing any weird clicking noises or trouble booting the computer:http://www.buzzle.com/articles/determining-hard-disk-failure.htmlIf there are not physical problems with the HDD, I would try to repair Windows via the Recovery Console. If that fails then the only alternative is a clean install using the recovery disk(s).

Hi. Thanks again for your help!I ran chkdsk on the C: drive and it declared the volume as clean. However, my machine still hangs and freezes.I only had about 370MB free on the E: drive. I've just freed up about 9GB on that drive so I'll try chkdsk on it again and see what happens.The C: drive is where I install all my programs. The E: drive is where I store everything else - my music, photos, video, documents etc. The McAfee program was on drive C: and I can't think of a program which would need to access E:.There doesn't seem to be any weird clicking and apart from crashing when I rebooted the first time I tried to run chkdsk on the C: drive, I haven't had any problems booting up.After having another go at running chkdsk on the E: drive I'll try the msconfig experimenting to see if there's a program that seems responsible for the freezing and hanging.

I ran chkdsk /r on the E: drive and I saw that it completed phase 1. I was doing other things and when I came back, my PC had crashed and had a blue screen saying Windows had been shut down to prevent damage to my computer. KERNEL_DATA_INPAGE_ERROR. The technical information:***STOP: 0X0000007A (0XE1D45B0C,0XC000000E,0XBF919E2E,0X7CDE8860)*** win32k.sys - Address BF919E2E base at BF800000, DateStamp 4bdd1407Does this mean anything to anyone?

Hello. Those blue screen of death (BSOD) don't mean much to anyone, save the Windows programmers. LOL. You can try to access event viewer for the system and see if that has any more info (Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Event Viewer> System logs). Can you reboot the computer? I had some optimism after reading your first post. But now, I don't think your E: drive has much hope and is not repairable. If you can still access any info, I would backup as much as you can and just reformat the partition. Maybe just mounting the damaged drive is causing the freezing and hanging and it will be OK after the reformat. I think I would then try to repair your Windows via the Recovery Console to deal with the freezing and hanging if it persists.

Hello. Those blue screen of death (BSOD) don't mean much to anyone, save the Windows programmers. LOL. Can you reboot the computer? I had some optimism after reading your first post. But now, I don't think your E: drive has much hope and is not repairable. If you can still access any info, I would backup as much as you can and just reformat the partition. Maybe just mounting the damaged drive is causing the freezing and hanging and it will be OK after the reformat. I think I would try to repair your Windows via the Recovery Console to deal with the freezing and hanging if it persists.

Hi Dorgus,You may run the Windows Memory Diagnostic on your machine which helps to detect problems with the computer’s memory. Thereafter, check if the issue persists.Hope the information helps. Please post back and let us know.RegardsDebleena SMicrosoft Answers Support EngineerVisit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

Hello. Yikes that is alot of new info. At this point, I don't think I would attempt any more repair efforts until you have been able to back up your data. I'm not thinking you are doing much good or even repairing anything if chkdsk does not complete and you get a BSOD. It is very dangerous that you will get a serious failure of your system and not be able to boot at all. No, do not attempt to install SP3 until the system is repaired or Windows is reloaded. SP3 is a huge update and could push your system over the edge. When you have your data backed up, then try a repair of Windows. The Recovery Console should be in your Recovery Disks. You have to make your DVD/CDROM drive the boot drive in BIOS. Then the PC will boot from the CD drive and a menu will come up (e.g. recovery console) where you will select repairing Windows.

Thanks again for taking the time to respond to me - I really appreciate it! I'm glad to report that it doesn't seem to be in vain....I entered msconfig and on the 'services' tab I clicked to 'disable all' (I don't think I remembered to hide all Microsoft services). I then ran chkdsk on drive E: and went out. When I got back hours later, there were lots of "Deleting index entry....." entries and some names of music and video files I've been looking for among lots of other files. There was also a pop up message box saying there was a hard disk error (or it may have said "hard disk data error" I can't remember). After clicking 'ok' several times I got a BSOD. I switched my machine off and on and when it rebooted, to my amazement, it didn't freeze although there is still some hanging. Then I discovered something truly amazing:My missing video files had reappeared!!!Unfortunately, my unbridled joy was curbed when I realised that my many music files were still missing. I downloaded and ran the ADRC Harddisk checker mentioned in the buzzle.com article and the C: drive had 12 errors while the E drive had 104.When I ran chkdsk on the C: drive it said it was 'clean' so I was surprised that there were any errors on it. I'm wondering if running chkdsk on the E: drive again might fix more errors. What do you think?I haven't run the Windows Memory Diagnostic yet as I haven't any blank CDs. I want to try using msconfig to deselect programs and see if a particular program appears to be causing the freezing. When the machine freezes it can take two or three hours to unfreeze so it may take a while.Unfortunately I've run out of spare hard drive space so I'm going to have to borrow or buy a drive to back up my stuff.

One other thing I forgot to mention. About 18 months ago, a Microsoft update shield appear on my desktop. When I tried to install the update I got a BSOD telling me that a driver is causing problems and I should try and install the update again. If my machine crashes again I should uninstall any recent hardware drivers and try again. Since I couldn't recall installing any hardware I wasn't sure what to do so I just ignored the update.Well, I've got another update notification but I'm hesitant to install it. What do you think I should do?While trying to find out what the Windows Recovery Console is, I stumbled across some information saying that Windows XP Service Pack 2, which I have, is no longer being supported. Should I download Service Pack 3 or try and fix my problems first?

Hi,Sorry about all the onslaught of new info! It all just occurred to me when I saw the update notification. I'm glad I asked though as I was hoping that updating Windows might be a quick fix. I'll stop trying to fix my system until I get everything backed up as losing everything now would be too much to bear! I had been thinking about getting another internal drive so I'll be on the look out for one now. When I get it I'll try to repair Windows with the Recovery Console and let you know how I get on.Thank you so much for your help so far - I really appreciate it!Until I get my harddrive,Dorgus.

Hello. No problem. Haven't helped much yet. LOL. Very good and just don't want you to lose any data. As long as the computer boots and acts fairly normally you have alot more options than when you can't boot anymore. Have you done much investigating on the driver issue? If you open Device Manager you should see the device with the driver issue. It will have a "!" next to it. You can see if Windows can update it or go to the manufacturer's website. Oh, here is another tool that shows running programs, Autoruns:http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx

Hey, just having some somebody to talk to who has a clue has been a great help!I opened Device Manager and looked at every single section but there were no exclamation warning signs. Since I haven't installed an update in a many months I have no idea if the problem as righted itself or not. Once I back up my data and get Windows working properly again, I'll try installing the update and then try upgrading to Service Pack 3.Autoruns looks like a clearer way than msconfig to see what programs start automatically and to systematically disable them to troubleshoot which one is causing a problem. I'll try it out when I've backed up.I just looked at the properties of some folders to help determine how much space I need to back up my data. One folder says the size is 1.05 EB and another says it is 75.7 PB. What measurements are EB and PB? I've never come across those before.I've just had a thought: my harddrive is one physical drive, partitioned into two drives. The C: drive (which contains my operating system and programs) appears to be largely ok while the E: drive has many bad sectors/errors. If the E: drive was irreparably damaged, would this be a threat to my C: drive since they're physically one drive?

Hello. Haha. This gets more weird all the time. Are you sure you aren't from an alien race? Haha. I've not heard of any consumer products currently available that are able to hold that much data. There are some terabyte (TB) external drives available but that's the biggest I know of. Must be the errors manifesting themselves. How big does the E: drive think it is? Probably enough to rule the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PetabyteWell, we haven't come to any conclusion on the physical health of the HDD. You apparently are not experiencing any mechanical issues, e.g. clicking or problems booting. So, I am inclined to believe at this point that the file system is messed up. Reformatting your E: drive after backup should give you a fresh start on that drive. Repairing Windows on the C: drive should take care of that drive. No guarantees that the reformatting or repairing will be successful. So you should be prepared to have another HDD on hand for replacement if needed. In the future you should pay more attention to checking errors, resolving driver issues, disk defragmentation, keeping Windows updated, and not running the disk at full capacity. I never run a disk more that 75-80% full but that is just me. Check your event viewer (a couple of posts up). It will be probably pretty full, though, with all the problems you have been having.