I have just recently started having trouble with my winxp pro. The trouble is as follows:
start>my computer open c: drive
start. my computer open d: drive
now with both windows open (c: D: both hard disks) I can right click on mostitems that are NOT folders and a context menu comes up. Now if I right click on a folder (like I want to copy or select properties) it will stay with an hour glass for up to 4 minutes but I can go to second window while this is
happening and I can right click on a folder and it works as expected and comes up almost immediately, first window is still frozen and after it very long delay will pop up with menu for a second!
I have tried scanning the drives for viruses, defragging, chkdisk I do not know what to do...
What other items can I try as I really would hate to wipe
drive and reinstall Winxp Pro, is there something as in win98 to check all the files to see if there are proper versions and none are missing??
I tried booting into winxp pro safe mode and it also hung up
they same way as I described.

Thanks

 

 

 

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Your harddrive might be failing. It starts getting slower and slower before it fails, and you will never know when it happens. Buy a cheap IDE harddrive and transfer your files and settings. Thats the best thing you can do.

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maybe your disk FAT of HDD is missing or broken...
you can fix them by command console booting from system CD.once go into the console you could type chkdsk /F to recovery your system partition files;then to type fixmbr to fix the disk FAT.
reboot...
hope everything goes well-good luck.

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Are you using FAT or NTFS? fixmbr DOES NOT fix the FAT file system chkdisk /F does(as hulunes mentioned). But I don't think it's a fat problem, the OS still boots quite fast right? If opening a file took that long booting windows would take an hour! Do you have enough memory to lauch that file?

This fault & diagnosis tree should work for a modern system.

 

 

 

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is it 2 hdd or 1 hdd that has been partitioned ?

does the problem occur if you right click on a folder when you only have 1 window open .... say c: drive.

if not try it again , but now try d: drive.

have you checked your task manager by pressing ctrl alt del and looking at your pc performance and also look at what memory each process is using .... it might give you a clue as to what is causing the delay.

my best guess would be that xp has become corrupted somewhere and that you only have 2 alternatives.


1. do a system restore from all programs / accessories / system tools ..... choose a restore date well before the problem started to show itself on your pc.

2. format c: drive and reinstall xp ..... copy all your data to d: drive that you do not want to loose , ie docs , email folders , favourites , desktop , etc.....when xp reinstalled just copy all the files back to c: drive.

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