I recently attempted to install an update to Firefox (3.0.7 i believe), and the update said it was successful, but when I clicked finish and open firefox, my computer froze. I did a hard restart by holding the power button. ever since XP will not finish startup. it opens my desktop, but only loads about half of my startup programs... slowly at that. my computer is basically unusable, it won't open anything and just gives an hour glass. I tried to get into system restore with no luck. I did a reboot using default settings from setup menu. nothing changed.

Help please!

" I tried to get into system restore with no luck"

Why? What happened?

Try System Restore via Safe Mode?

First tri to Start Your Computer in Safe-Mode, and check that if you have created any Restore Point or not if you have already created than try that Restore Point, if not successed again and same problem then try to remove temp files and folders, prefect, and unwanted things and then remove startup from Sysytem Configuration (msconfig). If not successed then try Safeboot.

1. don't worry it's a very simple but make sure that you have already created any Restore Point or not. if you have created any Restore point then try to Reboot your PC in Safe_Mode and then try to select any earlier created RSP.

2. Whenever you try to Start your computer Long Press F8 during Startup and then Select Last Known Good Configuration and then press Enter to continue. I hope it will reduce your issue. please try, the best.

When I went into system restore, my computer would just become "unresponsive." It would give an hour glass if the mouse was over the control panel, but otherwise nothing.

I fixed the issue with chkdsk /f

Some odd things still:

When I ran chkdsk /f it told me that the volume was in use by another process, but it ran when I restarted.

My computer seems to be having trouble installing programs. Especially Mozilla. I attempted to install Thunderbird last night, and the same thing happened as with Firefox. It gave me "installation complete" and when I clicked okay to close and open, it just froze.

I believe I am having some sort of hard drive issue here...but its just a speculation...

Please pardon the intervening posts. We had a strange visitor.

You can run the manufacturers diagnostic on your hard drive. Who is the manufacturer?

If you do not know look in the Device Manager under Disk drives.

Device Manager = right click My Computer then click Manage then Device Manager.

Also you might check out your Event Viewer:

Event Viewer
--------------------------------------------------
Check your Event Viewer via Administrative Tools.
Open the System as well as Application tabs and look for red X errors that coincide with your problem. Details here:
How to view and manage event logs in Event Viewer in Windows XP
Basic information on Event Viewer errors can be found here: EventID.Net

If this problem persist again n again try to delete all temp, and prefetch files and then try start Computer with Last Know Good Configuration, and again if same problem persist then try to remove Firefox from your system to resolve this Headache.

The hard drive is a MVH2100BH by Fujitsu. I ran their diagnostic, and it didn't find any problems. I am still have weird issues that seem to be triggered by a new program's installation or removal.

I just installed VLC player, and I can only get the program to open in safe mode. Otherwise, nothing happens when I double click. Also, Add/Remove Programs freezes every time i click on a program and choose "remove"

I have no idea...
I have ran virus scans (bit defender online) but nothing has even changed.

Please help. this is getting old...

Just to remove any malicious software from the equation please do the following and if they do not find anything malicious please return to this thread.

------------------------------------------------
Please read THIS and after completing the steps outlined post a HijackThis log over in that section along with a brief description of your problem.

Do not post HijackThis logs in this section please.


..................................
The security / spyware section of D-A-L works a little differently to the rest of the site. We currently only allow Head Security staff to reply to others threads to ensure a high level of support and quality is maintained with the daily issues which require a certain level of knowledge in this area.