Er.. Thought I'd mention it. The KillAV virus disabled system restore as well. Hope it's not that particular virus SC. But I think you'd know if it was that b****d by now!

NO, don't think it's that. My AV protection is always up to date and I NEVER open attachments unless I know who they're from and am expecting them. Most of my email comes through my Yahoo account which scans with Norton as well before it's received,. Closing down is also painfully slow as well now!! Going to backup before I do anything else though.

I am extremely pleased and also extremely impressed with

SUPERAntiSpyware - FREE VERSION for Home Users

They say

SUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!

It is very user-friendly and I also think it is phenominally thorough and slap bang up to date. I use it most days and always check for updates to the protection. It seem to have new stuff ready for this just about every other day.

I'd 100% recommend anyone to try it. If I run it first, then Ad-Aware SE Personal and also Spybot Search and Destroy can't find a damn thing.

I also use CCleaner regularly and get rid of most of my cookies, except for a few carefully chosen cookie retentions. I am convinced from personal experiences that some of the so-called 'tracking cookies' are the ones that can really slow your machine down.

By the way, thus far, I haven't felt the need to spend $29.95 and upgrade the Free SuperAntiSpyware to their 'Professional Version'.

Here are some SuperAntiSpyware Screenshots

iam well pleased with the above superantispyware,been using about a year now as well as ad-aware and S & D,
been thinking about the PRO version HERE
not that much to stop the bad ones,

Just to add to what these guys have said.
I run Norton & Luke Filewalker continuously, and yesterday ran CCleaner and Windows Registry Fix.
Having read the above, I thought I would give it a go. Downloaded, updated and ran, and it discovered, and named, 12 Adware programmes, now deleted.
Very impressed.

I'm using an Asus laptop. With XP Pro.

Can anyone explain why the cursor, from time to time, jumps back about four or five lines? And not necessarily to the start or end of a line.

It happens in Word, Virtual Access (my e:mail software) and even when writing these thread messages.

For a while I thought I was hitting some 'up' key - but that does not seem to be the answer as it can happen when I am not typing at all and merely looking at the screen to gather my thoughts.

Any clues friends?

TP

TP, is your laptop new, and does it have a touchpad? The only reason I can think of this happening is if you're accidentally brushing the touchpad.

SC

Could easily be that.

Will take evasive action!!

TP

Well, before I got my photos backed up the hard disc has crashed. It's saying "file record ....... is unreadable". I presume that's pretty terminal. Got all my documents backed up. Is there any hope for my photos? Have some backed up but by no means all :-(

tp , overheating??

SC

Yes there is hope but it is complicated. The first thing to do is switch off the computer and don't try to use it again.

What exactly happened to your disk?

Have you another machine that you can mount your disk on and has it enough free space for your entire disk?

Consider how mch time and/or money you are prepared to spend to get them back

There are specialist disk recovery companies who would charge minimum of hundreds.

I have used a disk recovery program in the past that cost around 30. It recovered almost all of a formated disk but took a considerable time and effort.

If you are interesed, I'll find the details.

Edit

You could try chkdsk /f but using this may fix the problem or may clean the corrupted files up but make them very diffcult or impossible to access. It all depends how badly this disk is damaged. Don't do this yet.

Optimist, do I stop the chkdsk from running now, and just by turning off or how?

Second, yes I can mount the disk on another machine. I'd be interested to know about the program. The photos would be a loss but not catastrophic. I may just have to ask friends to let me have copies of their photos of the same events!

I would really like to get them back though. Just didn't have time to backup.Machine has been taking longer and longer to boot up and close down,

edit now up to 62% checked. An AWFUL lot of errors being reported.

SC

I would not stop chkdsk. Are you using it with the /f switch?

No. I know what that does!

edit My PC man is round the corner and is very reasonable. I'll consult him in the morning. Thanks for your help.

SC

If you don't use the /F switch then it will not change anything on the disk - assuming you are using NTFS file system. switch off and consider your options.

Edit

Whatever you do, mount the disk on another computer. This will prevent any files being overwritten by Windows.

What,switch off now even though chkdsk is running?

edit, yes, ntfs

SC

No I'd let chkdsk finish. I don't think it would make any difference but without the /F it is in read only mode so it's not worth interupting it.

OK, thanks. Bedtime :-)

md

"overheating?? "

Unlikely. It's been happening for a while and I bought one of those coolers recently. No obvious connection.

TP

I had Norton anti virus but stopped paying for the updates and downloaded AVG free edition. Shall i just use AVG, as two firewalls seem to slow things up.