Here's a strange one... Following an upgrade of my laptop drive to a Seagate hybrid Momentus (after which I haven't noticed any improvement whatsoever. If anything, it actually seems to have slowed things down. A lot) I received a couple of BSODs. So I then installed the latest Vista updates and antivirus updates and restarted the machine, did a couple of bits and just closed the lid. When I opened the lid the next day and pressed the power button to restore my session, the screen remained blank but the hard drive light started going mad, as if it was accessing for all it was worth. I managed to press the wireless button and turn that off, so there is some response, but no other buttons, trackpad movement or power button pushing will bring the screen to life and restore the session. That was last Friday. The drive has now been accessing constantly for 4.5 days solid! I suspect it may be McAfee doing a scan of all the rubbish and zipped folders in my recycle bin, as I've caught it doing that before (naughty) but still - 4.5 days?!?! Just wondered if anyone else has ever seen this. I'm going to leave it to finish, assuming it ever does, as I'm curious to find out what the hell it's doing. Then I might just uninstall McAfee, upgrade to Win 7 and be done with it. Damn thing's been more trouble than use.
Vista McAfee mfw Soooooo many memes I'd love to post right now, but this isn't the place unfortunately! That aside, was this an image restore, or a completely fresh install of Windows? TSB
Yeah, I realise I've kind of opened myself up to ridicule here! It was an image restore. The machine came with Vista pre-installed so I had no choice with that one. McAfee was also pre-installed, but I just hadn't got around to uninstalling it once the free trial lapsed...nothing like learning through your mistakes... Tending more towards the "nuke from orbit" idea with each passing day the drive continues to look busy doing nothing.
Hehe, we're just playing, there was once a time when Vista ruled the roost, and we all used it! It's unfortunate you can't do a fresh install, as image restores from different drives are known to have sometimes unexpected and undesired effects... Given that you have a license for Vista, it might be worth looking into a Win7 upgrade CD, as these can be had for less than even the OEM copies? Failing that, a legit full OEM copy would set you back about £70. =[ Alternatively, if you can extract a license key for your current install, you could do a fresh install of Vista if you can get hold of a CD, there are many kind people on here who might lend you one! TSB
Oh dear. It's now been a week and no signs of abating, so I've hard-reset the machine as I was bored. Going to have a look at the logs and see if I can figure out what was taking up the resources...
Sooooo.....nothing jumped out at me. When I switched the drives, I did use the Seagate/Acronis disc wizard tool and that succeeded where DriveImageXML failed, so I assumed all was well. Have been through the logs as best I can but still none the wiser. I do have MSE and a couple of others installed, so thinking about just clearing McAfee off now. However, have seen the Win 7 Family Pack for ~£140 for three PCs, so would performing this as an upgrade (preserving programs and settings) be classed as a clean install? Also, what's the best way of keeping an installation backed up whilst trying to avoid the compatibility issues mentioned above (when re-imaging across different drives)? I've always used DriveImage, but that could actually account for a lot of the issues...
