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Laptop takes ages to start

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I have an acer 5536 laptop, with Windows 7 & IE 11 installed.

For the last few day's it can take up to an hour to boot the laptop up, i.e. I'm constantly pressing the start button, once booted it runs OK.

Anyone have an idea what's causing the laptop so long to boot up?
I'm hopeless with technology, in addition, I suffer with MH issues, what may appear simple, I struggle with, may I ask, please be patient, thank you

Comments

  • There are several possibilities.

    Run CCleaner to clear out crap files. Run Malwarebytes in case of trojans. Type msconfig into RUN and disable any startup items not required. Defrag with Auslogics and use the 'optimise' option to close up data for faster reading...
    “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
    ― Groucho Marx
  • arrallas
    arrallas Posts: 178 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 100 Posts
    I think this could be a bigger problem than would be sorted by a clean up and defrag. I would want to run a CHKDSK to rule out any hdd problems first.
  • J_B
    J_B Posts: 6,806 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper Photogenic
    Type msconfig into RUN and disable any startup items not required. ...

    Personally, I prefer to use the 'start up' tab in CCleaner for this..
  • Run CCleaner to clear out crap files
    Done, no effect
    Run Malwarebytes in case of trojans
    Done, no effect
    Type msconfig into RUN and disable any startup items not require
    Done, no effect
    Defrag with Auslogics and use the 'optimise' option to close up data for faster reading...
    Not sure how to do that
    I'm hopeless with technology, in addition, I suffer with MH issues, what may appear simple, I struggle with, may I ask, please be patient, thank you
  • Knarf44
    Knarf44 Posts: 557 Forumite
    Agree with post number #3, sounds to me that your hard disk has possibly developed some bad sectors which is usually the first sign of it failing.

    Suggest you copy any important files you can to a USB memory stick, blank dvd or external hard disk while you can, then run chkdsk (instructions follow - see link):

    http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2641432

    If that doesn't fix it and all your malware scans have come up clean I would suggest you download the free trial of a program called HD Tune from the following link:

    http://www.hdtune.com/

    Once it's installed, open it and run a Health scan by clicking on the health tab and then start. If it has more than 2 or 3 bad blocks I suggest replacing the hard drive.

    Did you make the recovery disks your laptop would have prompted you to make when you first got it?
  • Knarf44 wrote: »
    Did you make the recovery disks your laptop would have prompted you to make when you first got it?

    Yes Knarf44
    I'm hopeless with technology, in addition, I suffer with MH issues, what may appear simple, I struggle with, may I ask, please be patient, thank you
  • I tried the health check, but cannot see the start icon
    Knarf44 wrote: »
    If it has more than 2 or 3 bad blocks I suggest replacing the hard drive

    Using the "Error Scan" it's found 2 damaged blocks:

    3 - Error at 31302 MB (LBA 64106720)
    4 - Error at 31302 MB (LBA 64106848)
    I'm hopeless with technology, in addition, I suffer with MH issues, what may appear simple, I struggle with, may I ask, please be patient, thank you
  • Knarf44
    Knarf44 Posts: 557 Forumite
    edited 6 April 2015 at 1:08AM
    Did you run chkdsk, if not do so. It will attempt to move data from the bad sectors to good ones but there's no guarantee it will solve the problem and this disk will eventually fail. How long that takes is any body's guess but please save any important data you have on there now.

    It's good you made the recovery disks as they will reinstall your software to a new hard disk back to the day you bought it.

    Oh and chkdsk will probably take some time to run.
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