Laptop Stall

Alright, so this is kinda weird. I recently downlaoded the new Adobe CS5 suite and was about to install it when I was told to restart first by the setup. So I go ahead and restart and I see that the laptop is taking quite a long time to start-up. After about 8 minutes, the laptop restarted on it's own and Windows booted up normally. I swear it's the weirdest thing. What can be causing this? A complete re-install it out of the question as I have a ton of work on here. Can I perhaps fix the system files? Until then, I'll just put the computer into sleep mode.

First of all, externally back up any files you cannot afford to lose at all times. The modern way to back up is to have your files backed up along with a Win7 Backup image so you can reimage your HD or a replacement in 20 minutes if your computer or OS ever die.

Next make a Repair CD if you don't have a Win7 DVD.

Next check in the Event Viewer>Admininstrative view and Performance>Diagnostics logs (type in Startup Search box) for any errors at the time your computer hung to research what they are.

Now, restart the computer and see if it starts normally. If not, boot the Win7 Repair CD to run Startup Repair. If necessary, Startup Repair should run System Restore to before the problem, however you can also run System Restore from the CD/DVD.

Post back if you have any further problems.

Backup to cd or dvd is a must with a bootable image... I also keep an image backup to a usb HD once a week and always keep one backup from 2 months past and the last 4 weeks for things like this.. Reboot and you maybe fine... GL :)

Product FRED said:

Where did you download CS5 from? Could be a virus.

Smart thinking. What else would cause such a crash just from downloading it? I would install free Avast 5 and schedule a boot scan after updating it - this is the deepest scan because no services are running for infection to hide in.

I'd also install and update Spybot and then run it in Safe Mode as it has the ability to flush viruses hiding in memory at restart and then nail them.

Then I'd run a third scan from desktop of MS Security Essentials which is best choice nowdays for your AV solution.

I already have Avast! at the moment. I also use both paid subscriptions on SUPERAntispyware and Malwarebytes. I'll go ahead and schedule a boot-time scan. Also, this can't be a virus since I downloaded the trial straight from Adobe's site.

According to the logs, en error occurred yesterday with the message "The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\DR4."

Run HD Diagnostic full CD scan for your make HD. Then check file system with chkdsk /r.

Test your memory with memtest86 for at least 6 pases, or overnight to stress test.