Windows Vista windows vista freezes

Hi there,

We have a 2 year old sony laptop with vista on it that has been working perfectly. Yesterday upon start up we noticed that the screen flickered three times (like on and off) and then the home page appeared. everything appeared to be fine until you select an application..ANY APPLICATION!
From that point you get the hourglass and then when you try to close the window it displays.... "not responding"
You then have to take out the battery and start all over again.

I tried to do a system restore starting in Safe-Mode, but the same thing happens and then on start up it says that restore was not performed.

I cant even tell whether it has SP2 and I cant remember. We never made recovery discs and Sony has been in the habit of not supplying them.

Oh, it did display another message, saying that Windows shut down to prevent a problem and then it said to click to find out what happened, but when you click on the "here" icon, it does the same thing.

Using AVG Free 9.0.733

I appreciate your help!

 

Hi living life,

There is not enough information to say if it is Windows or hardware related
Ideally post the Laptop Manufacturer and Model number, as there may be a patch or update or many other relevant information that may be found. Including others who have the same laptop.

To step back a bit, does Windows presently run at all?
ie Can you back up your data, whilst you still can?

You may be able to order a Windows "Restore" disc from your computer manufacturer. With a 2yr old laptop this would definitely be available.
Please contact your laptop manufacturer and order a "Restore" disc, whilst we try to fix the issue.

If you are still able to get to Safe Mode, disable all startups using MSCONFIG.
Then restart back to Normal mode. Does Windows now work properly?

You may have faulty hardware including RAM or Mobo, is the computer under warranty?
It may also be hardware connected to your computer, try disconnecting all external hardware.
To begin with you could create a Memtest boot CD and run a full scan on your RAM

 

Hi Kimsland,

it is a Sony VGN NR420D.
The only thing that the computer will do is start and then the home screen appears, not the windows one, but desktop. Then MSN messenger and MSN today appear as they always do. If you don't click on them then you can make one choice and then it freezes. Or, if you click on MSN it freezes or if you click on MSN today it freezes. Starting in Safe Mode with prompts also freezes, so only Safe Mode will work and from there it will allow you to do a System Restore, but in the end, the Restore is not performed.
There is no hardware connected, nor was there. This just happened.

 

I see this is pretty bad. So obviously if you run MSconfig (or try to) in Safe Mode it freezes (or its already frozen anyway)

As stated above this could be faulty RAM
What I'd do is remove the RAM blow out any dust, re-insert the RAM and still run that Memtest bootCD through it.
You may also reseat the Hard drive by removing it, and then pushing it back in.

It still can be a Windows issue mind you like faulty driver loading or even corrupted Windows, at worse it could be Malware (for the Windows issues)
Other than running Memtest you could create a free Knoppix BootCd, which loads its own OS. Of which you can check:
1. Does it still freeze - therefore I'd have to say hardware related
2. You can also backup your important data, making this not a concern anymore, especially if the hard drive is about to fail (as not ruled out as a possibility as yet)

 

Hi Kimsland,

It started to work and then froze again. I saw another poste titled "Laptop keeps crashing soon after startup" which sounds similar to my problem. there was a debate about doing sfc/scannow.
What if I try to get to the prompt to do that?

I do notice that the fan does not run, so it could be an overheating problem?

 

Some/Many laptop Fans only turn on at a certain temperature, this is to save power.

I feel it will freeze before it finishes this long scan, sometimes up to 1Hr in duration.

You are advised to follow what I have mentioned to do so far
I have about 25K posts across the Net on support only if that helps

 

Hi Kimsland,

It wont even start any more, all I get is the Microsoft Corporation Icon with the green bars going across. When I shut it down and restarted, I got the message that it wouldnt start and I cant remember what else it said. I took the cover off the back to see, and I can hear the hard drive barely spin.....

I think it has failed. It's a Seagate Momentus 5400 200GB.

I have an external 500 Gig hard drive that I could hook up. should i disconnect this one and try to run off the other? I do not have anything backed up on that one other than photography, so I will not have an OS to run it....

I appreciate your help with the next step!

 

Yes please try another Hard Drive, this will eliminate the Hard Drive as one of the possible issues.
Obviously Window will need to be re-installed

 

so the big question is.....
where do I get the Vista OS, seeing how we never made a recover disk when we bought this laptop two years ago.....
also, is there any way to get the data off of this hard drive if it is the problem?

 

I'm thinking you didn't do that? A day ago now

That's how

You are following what I suggest I hope? 97 individual members have read this thread so far, no ones added to or gone against anything I've suggested so far ie The above info will help you.

 

You could get the Seagate testing utilities, SeaTools, from their website. That will allow you to test the HDD or see if there is any problem running in that operating system.

Sometimes the laptop manufacturer includes a HDD testing utility in the BIOS/startup configuration settings.

You mention the fan, consider that the cooling system might be blocked with dust. I might be more convinced to investigate it if the stage it freezes at is getting earlier.

Read in the User Guide/Manual if there is a recovery partition on the HDD and how you can boot to it.

If you want to save data from the drive, you could put it into an external enclosure and connect it to another computer (Vista would be best and you could run Error Checking (CHKDSK) on it).

Matt

 

Hi Kimsland,

I tried 3 mirrors and I cannot get a file that will load, the last one was from Purdue, ADRIANE-KNOPPIX_V6.2.1CD-2010-01-31-DE.iso, however, it would not burn to my DVD or CD. which is why I thought about getting a Vista OS, putting it on my Maxtor external hard drive, booting my computer and then trying to get into the hard drive.

I don't want to be a pain, but if you have a link that will burn to a single DVD, I will try it..

Just to let you know, I ordered a new Sony yesterday, but I still want to fix this one.

Mattman,
I like your idea as well, however, I cannot get the computer to get past the Microsoft "waiting icon" so imo I think that the hard drive has failed. I had an Acer that had intermittent hard drive problems and I actually had some IDE hard drive adaptors rigged to have it work through a desk top serial connector to pull data off. That was a Seagate as well, but the terminals are quite different on this Sony, and I don't have the desk top any more.

I will go to their site and see and do as you recommended.

I appreciate all of your help.

Living Life

 

kimsland is "offline" at the moment. I haven't used Knoppix, if I want to boot to an "almost Windows" boot disk, I use the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows (ubcd4win)
http://www.ubcd4win.com/

It actually starts booting to the operating system, that says to me that the HDD and it's basic functions are working. It might need the file system checked for errors (CHKDSK), drivers might not be loading correctly or are corrupt (why you might need use the manufacturer's recovery system) and you don't have a retail version of the Windows/Vista DVD, so you can't use their testing or repairing utilities (note that if you install a retail version of Vista on the computer, you might not be able to find the drivers to run it correctly).

Matt

 

You can solve this problem by using Driver Max to save (backup) your system's drivers to a safe location (removable media) to be retrieve (installed) later on the new OS.

 

Here is what I did....

When I picked up my new Sony as I said that I would, I told them what happened to my old one. They suggested that when I power it on, i repeatedly press the F10 key and that would put it in recovery mode....

I did that and it did.
From there I backed up all of the data to an external hard drive (I only had 55 GB stored).
Then I did a complete restore where Vista recovery wiped out everything that was on the harddrive and started from fresh as though it was a new computer.

My son has been using the computer all week and it has worked without a problem. Last night we loaded all of the updates that Vista found which took about 6 hours and nothing happened so we will continue to run it and see what happens. I would like to load Windows 7 to it, but I want to make sure that the hard drive is okay.

So for now, there is no explanation as to what happened, but before I transfer anything from the external hard drive to my new Sony, I will do another virus check before I transfer it.

This is puzzling because 55 GB on a 200 GB drive is nothing, so who knows what happened. It had/has the latest version of AVG on it and it was scanned daily as well as defragged monthly.

Sincerely,
Living Life

 

Sony has some "basic" functions that will be individual. If you don't have the User Guide/manual, download it from their website. It should tell you about getting into their recovery system.

The OEM manufacturers (Dell, HP, Sony, etc) are offering varying recovery systems. Our members might not have experience with the way it works on your laptop. Thank you very much for sharing your experience with us.

I will mark this thread resolved.

Matt