Explorer error/safe mode

[Amy March]

Hi - while on the internet, I froze - tried ctrl/alt/del and showed explorer not responding. I closed my isp and then went to control panel to repair Internet explorer. Then I had some type of error and my system shut down. I restarted it and it came up in safe mode. My question is - what could have caused this and while in safe mode, what do I do next??? Not sure what to do in safe mode. Thanks in advance!!

 

[SavvyLady]

Hi

Originally posted by Amy March
Hi - while on the internet, I froze

what was you doing at the time.... was you downloading something??

I suggest first to clean out the cache...

then run an **updated virus scanner.**.. http://housecall.antivirus.com/
this is a free online scan

also how many items do you have in your startup?

 

[Mosaic1]

As a first step. I would run scandisk and then reboot to see if Windows will start. Be sure to set scandisk to prompt before fixing errors and to also free lost file fragments.

 

[Amy March]

I was just playing a game when all this happened. Cache is cleaned, since I do this every day. I ran my virus program, and all is ok. I am back to normal now, no more safe mode. I'm still not sure what happened. Mosaic, you mentioned:

[be sure to set scandisk to prompt before fixing errors]

I've gotten into alot of trouble with this option before. How do I know which prompt is the one giving me trouble? Also, as to "free lost file fragments"? How do I find and get rid of them?? Thanks much!!

PS-tried to do a scan disk, when I came back, had an error but could not access it as the system from frozen. It did notice another error: DDHelp caused general protection fault in GDI.exe

 

[Amy March]

Any further suggestions/help? Thank you

 

[SavvyLady]

Amy... you possibly have to much in your startup...

to take some items out... you go to start/run ... type in msconfig & click ok... go to startup & take the checks out of things you do not need to load as soon as you reboot. for a list of things you will see in your startup menu.... open this URL & go thru the items you have one at a time removing checks where you can.

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_pages/startup_full.htm#D

after you do that click apply & ok...then you will be prompted to reboot

when you get back to the desktop a window will show you are using selective startup ... click the box before you click OK... so it will stop loading everytime you reboot.

then you need to run a virus scan... hopefully you have oneif not let me know

also a spyware scan

ad-aware is what we use mostly... you can get a download of that at http://www.lavasoftusa.com

then when you have done all this and everything is normal you need to run a full maintenance program... diskclean up .. scandisk.. & defrag

for best results in maintenance... set up maintenance... to run in while in safe mode.
Hope this helps