Please help! laptop restore problem

suzanna

Hi

I would like to put my system back about 1 year to about 1 month after i first brought my laptop as i want to keep my wireless connection installed ( i had loads of problems getting that sorted)

My computer is running really slowly and i have some temp internet files that keep multiplying and coming back after i have deleted them and use up all my hard drive (there was over 20,000 of them!!) i have run all ad-aware and spybot but nothing is coming up also i have zone alarm somewhere on there but its not loading so i dont have a clue what's going on?

I have backed up all the files that i want to save on a portable hard drive and thought that the easiest thing to do would be to go back to the begining and start again.

That was until i tried to do the system restore and it said that i could only go back to 18th March 2006. I dont have the windows disk as it was already installed when purchased and although i have a cd/dvd writer i cant see any software for it and have never used it.

I'm sorry to go on but could someone please help me as my laptop is virtually useless.

Any advise will be much apreciated

Thanks

Suzanna

albertross_2

have you tried this?

https://www.ccleaner.com

unless you have a recovery disk, or a recovery partition, you aren't going to be able to get it back to the date you want. So, the alternative is to sort out your problem. What model is it, how much ram, how big is the hard disk, how much free space do you have?

Do you have upto data antivirus software installed, have you been to https://www.windowsupdate.com recently?

suzanna

I'm just downloading this now and will give it a try

Thanks

Suzanna

banger9365

the only way i can see to do this is to do a full restore using the back up disc that you should have made when you first turned it on and you will lose the wifi connection ..
you mite still have the back up disc on a partion in the hard drive put i do not now how to get it off now others in the forum may do ..
also a few specs off the lappy mite help more

albertross_2

try an independent scan:

http://safety.live.com/site/en-US/default.htm

if you no av software, try this:

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html

Read this sticky for more info

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=133269

suzanna

I have just run the cleaner program but i still have 13.6gb of internet logs and it is still coming back after i have deleted them.

My Spec is

256DDR
40gb hard drive
mobile amd sempron 2600+
windows xp home

when i start up my computer at the begining it gives an option for loading a different windows thing, would this be the restore?

albertross_2

when you say internet logs, what do you mean, zonealarm logs? If zonealarm has gone gaga, uninstall it, delete the log directory.., and either reinstall it, or use the XP firewall instead.

have you tried a chkdsk c: /R in case you HD is corrupt, that is a lot of logs.. either something is constantly attacking you (broadband? - think about buying a router), or zonealarm installation is corrupt.

suzanna

I think the problem with the files is a file called backup and it's a RDB file and it wont let me delete it. The file seems to duplicate and duplicate. How can i delete this?

With the chkdsk c:/R thing how do i do this? do i put it in the run program?

Sorry to be a pain

Suzanna

scheming_gypsy

start > run > command (enter) and in the dos box type it in and hit enter.

albertross_2

yes put it in the start run thing, or as gypsy suggests from the cmd prompt - it will check you disk for corruption at the next reboot.

But, I think your problem is zonealarm related (assuming that you don't have an infection of some sort), the solution is to uninstall zonealarm from control panel, add-remove programs, delete the log files (internet logs directory, and all mdb's), then re-install zonealarm.

http://download.zonelabs.com/bin/free/1230_zl/zlsSetup_61_744_001_en.exe

If the file is in use by zonealarm, you won't be able to delete it, that is why you need to uninstall first (ZA seems to have gone gaga as well, so another reason to try a re-installation)