wilkes

Irish, I read in the other thread where you can't go to Facebook with IE, but you can Chrome.

That usually means that you have some spyware. Go to http://www.gowilkes.com/tech/, and download Malwarebytes Anti-Malware. This should catch any spyware on your PC.

FWIW, I turned off automatic updates on my PC over a year ago, and haven't updated since. I hadn't had this computer for long before the network card just completely froze up, not letting me go online or connect to the network (wired or wireless). I replaced the network card, and it still didn't work. My problem, too, turned out to be a bad Microsoft update, so I just turned it off, and figured "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Thanks to you all.. I reinstalled everything like I did yesterday after the 3rd restore. I did not however download the windows updates, even though the icon is staring me in the face wanting me to download 46 of them this time. I haven't. The computer is working fine. Virus protection is spot on, printer is working. All of the 3 things you mentioned have not been the case. There is no noise, it runs as fast as lightening and we havent lost anything. The way I see it, I am going to leave it as is and when it really screws up if it is going to, then I will fix it.

I just want to add to Cynic's post that if the restore works Turn off automatic updates untill you are satisfied that the computer is working, then do updates a few at a time untill you find the one causing the problem

Also run error checking on the boot disk, Right click on C:, select tools then error checking

It is possible. Also it could be the Thermal paste on the CPU itself. You may want to check that. If you need how to let me know

Three signs that your hard drive is going bad:

1. Noises coming from the hard drive itself.

2. Extremely slow to start up (like, 5 minutes).

3. Loss of data.

The problem you described COULD be a bad hard drive, causing loss of data, but you could also have a virus that is doing the same thing. There could also be a faulty Microsoft update (which is VERY common).

If you did a restore, and everything worked fine until you ran the Microsoft updates, then that's pretty suspect.

I would do another restore, then see how it goes without installing your printer, antivirus, or running any updates. If it doesn't have any problems for a day or two, then you know that it's one of those 3 things that caused the problem.

BTW, $200 is a fair price for replacing the hard drive, IF that price includes a new hard drive, and he's going to copy all of your old data over. The new hard drive alone will be somewhere between $70 and $100, so $100 for labor is reasonable.

OK! Our computer quit. It would say windows wasnt starting correctly and gave us several ways to boot windows, in safe mode etc. We tried all of those things and it didnt work. We did a system restore and the computer started working again. I reinstalled our printer drive, our virus protection and restarted it twice, no problem. Windows updated 48 (no lie) items on the computer, it restarted, and then nothing. It would not let me click on any icons and was basically frozen.

Does this sound like it needs a new hard drive? Thats what the PC tech guy said when I told him before we got it working!