Windows XP Screen freezing on Welcome

Wikikenkey

My computer is driving me mad. It is quite an old hard drive (about 9 years old) with Windows XP. We switch it off every night and back on in the morning.

Of late when we switch it on, it starts-up but freezes on the "Welcome" screen. Ctrl Alt Del does not work on this section of the start-up so we end up switching the computer off by keeping the harddrive's "on/off" button pushed in for a while. We switch back on after a few minutes and sometimes the computer starts up properly as normal and other times, I have to force switch it off again and then back on.

Does anyone know what it causing this? Apart from this, the harddrive seems okay and I don't think I need to change it just yet. Any ideas?

macman

A 9 year old hard drive is well beyond it's expected life and could fail at any time. Like tomorrow. Or it could last another 2 years. There is no way of knowing, but you should assume the former and make sure all your data is backed up now. You won't necessarily get any other warning.
There could be many other causes, but with a 9 year old PC I'd start there.

Wikikenkey

Thanks, luckily I do have a Western Digital Backup Book.

I have a quite a few files on my desktop - makes for easy retrieval. Maybe I should try moving those.

macman

I use the free utility below (follow the link to HDD Health) for a quick disk check:
http://www.panterasoft.com/
I don't think that a few files on your desktop is the issue here.
Buy a USB caddy, and clone the existing drive to a replacement drive before it fails.

leseul

This could well be an issue with corruption of your ageing hard drive.

Also, on an older computer, having lots of shortcuts and files on your desktop can actually lead to long startup times - moving them into a folder on the desktop might help your PC boot faster.

Run chkdsk and see if this temporarily alleviates the problem for you (support.microsoft.com/kb/315265) also follow macman's advice on hard drive health.

chkdsk might just make things better for a while, but if you get any errors using the health checker suggested by macman...

Consider replacing your hard drive and using your backup NAS to store your files during the process. A fresh install of windows on a new drive will work wonders! Note: Before you do this, make sure that you have the XP license key sticker on the outside of your pc case and an original install cd, otherwise you'll need to clone the drive.

Wikikenkey

Thanks all. I will try panterasoft and chkdsk this evening.

Just in case I have to get a new computer. What would you recommend? I won't need a monitor, just the hard drive.

Dell has served me quite well over the years - are there any models you would recommend or any other makes. Not looking to spend more than £500. Less would be nice.

I download mp3's once in a while so need space for music and would need the newer USB spec - I believe USB3??

Is Windows 7 Home Premium a safe bet? A laptop I have at home uses Vista which I do not like - crashes too often. What would be a good memory size and processor?

macman

You don't need a hard drive-you need a base unit (well, you do need a hard drive, as that's one of the components inside the base unit).
You don't need to pay anything like £500 for that. W7 Home Premium is the OS to go for, maybe a min 500GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM.
However, even if your hard drive is failing, it's easily replaceable and does not require you to buy a new computer. Though at 9 years old you may consider that a repair is not economic.
Dell Inspiron desktops start at around £350.