Computer Problem: Computer Just Freezes

[AnAutisticDog]

A couple days ago my Firefox started messing up in a weird way, I could not search Google or Yahoo. I didnt think it was that bad, I did a virus scan, an adware scan an a spyware scan......nothing came up.

So now when ever I boot up my computer everything seems normal, but no matter what I do It just freezes. All my programs just stop. I cant move my mouse or do anything.

So now Im in safe mode, my computer works fine now, but when I try to boot normally it freezes within 5 minutes. I tried a virus scan in Safe mode and nothing came up.

Does anyone know what might be the problem?

 

[Zach]

Could be that something just messed up your config and is causing problems.. Anything you've installed recently, a hardware or some software (and any other software that got installed with it), drivers, etc..

If its working fine in safe mode it is definitely a software issue with something you installed recently, or a setting you changed somewhere in the system. These things can be hard to pinpoint sometimes unfortunately, and sometimes the only solution is to format.

 

[AnAutisticDog]

Is there a way I can Re-install windows but keep my files? Like music, movies, games and other stuff. I dont have an external Harddrive

 

[Zach]

Back the files up to some other medium.. Burn stuff to DVDs.. As far as backing up games goes, you don't want to waste time and effort backing up the installation directories because it won't do you any good.. Save games for most newer games are kept under your user accounts my documents/my games folder usually.. or something similar depending on your Windows version.. If not there, then game saves will be kept in a "Save" folder in the game installation directory..

Your videos and music will undoubtedly take up the largest amount of space.. If we are talking in excess of 10gb or something though.. You should find a safe and reliable partition program, that can take your current single partition and use the free space on your drive to cut it in half and create a new partition from that free space (like when you install Linux next to a windows install, the same thing happens when you take space from a windows drive).. Then you can just move your files over to the new partition once it is given a drive letter and formatted.

After all your backed up data is saved on that partition, boot windows from your setup CD, and during install quickformat the drive windows was installed on, making sure not to touch the new drive you created on the other partition..

Partitions are simple.. instead of one drive, your PC views each partition as a seperate drive, even though it is all on the same disk

 

[Alexander_13]

or restore the system

 

[TchuBacha]

Im guessing your still running Firefox 3.0?

Ive been running Ff3 since it came out and Ive had a few problems with it crashing. My guess is it crash just after you close a tab?

Uninstall Ff3 and reinstall Ff2. If the problem stops then we know its something wrong with Ff3.

 

[FalconYT]

Definitely look for the last program you installed or anything you've changed just before you started getting those freezes. Since safe mode utilizes basic drivers for your hardware to function and give you limited functionality to fix problems, I agree with Zach, most likely software...

1. See if you can uninstall your Firefox 3 first...

2. If possible try a system restore to a previous date from safe mode.. (from memory here, don't know if windows allows that from safe mode.)

3. You can do a Windows XP repair install off of the cd.. Worth a shot maybe..

4. Then the dreaded format and go... Last resort..

But as with anything system changing, backup all important data first if you can..