Waaah!

[brixtonbrood]

I left computer alone whilst I went off to watch HIGNFY, and it clearly felt neglected, because it left the relatively innocuous site I was perusing* and when I came back it had apparently acquired new hardware and was looking for a driver for something called a PCI-PCI interface (or something). I told it I didn't want it to do this, gently, and then more forcefully, and it then decided to reboot very very slowly...in Windows 98. I applied IT cliche number 1, and it now seems OK, apart from the usual niggles caused by McAfee not appreciating Demon and vice versa, but I am very scared, and thinking things about back-ups, and my lack thereof.
Does anybody have any ideas that do not relate to telling me to get a proper backup routine going?

*oh alright it was the Strictly Come Dancing fora on Digital Spy - are you happy now

Comments

[waistcoatmark.livejournal.com]

Is windows 98 still supported by Microsoft? I thought they'd given up on it as a bad job back in 2006. Unless you're using Firefox (and/or never look at any even slightly dodgy sites) and connecting to the internet via some port-blocking router (as opposed to going directly via a modem), then there's probably some very unpleasant programs running on your box. :-(

I'd strongly advise switching to XP or linux...

[pureofthought.livejournal.com]

I'd agree here - though I thought that suggesting Linux might well be as unwelcome as suggesting that taking backups is a good policy (it's not difficult - I bought myself a big enough external Seagate hard drive from Maplins, and it came with backup software which means you just plug in the drive, attach it to a USB port and click on a back up icon (it slightly irritatingly complains if you don't back up weekly, but that's just a fairly slight niggle).

As far as spyware on your machine goes, I'd recommend installing Spybot (http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10122137.html), which is a) free b) good and c) easy to use. The first time I ran it on my laptop, it found a frightening number of malicious software installations - despite me only using the laptop behind a firewall and being as I thought careful. Removing them (you run a search, and then can just click on "Remove") speeded booting by about 50% and made the computer a fair bit faster generally.

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Windows 98 is very much not supported by Microsoft.
My computer does indeed run XP.
However, my F drive, which is the hard drive of my old computer (killed by an inadvisable Windows security download) has Windows 98 on it, and presumably that's where it came from - but heaven knows how - as I said, it wasn't doing anything at all when I left it.
I'll do an Adaware run and see if that catches anything - Mcafee have failed to find anything I think, but they tend to be laconic about the stuff they do find.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Sounds like (a) it crashed, (b) it then couldn't boot off your normal drive for some reason, so (c) it hunted around and booted off the F drive instead. (a) and (b) were probably caused by the same thing, fortunately temporary but could easily recur if was caused by overheating, dodgy soldered joint, etc.

[t--m--i.livejournal.com]

How old is it, how hot does it get, how dusty is it inside? And if you have a look inside, does anything else look funny - bursty capacitors or anything?

Hardware problems do still happen...

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Ooh, good points. Come to mention it, the fan does make some very ominous noises from time to time...