Harrycat, thanks

Ive got not no chance following that ;-)

Make sure you clean all temporary files with something like CCleaner.

Think I fixed it, in safe mode using Avira
even thou other virus checker picked it up, none got rid or quaitined it even when they said they would fix it

R69, how did you happen to pick up the virus? If it was by clicking on search results, consider using something like Norton SafeWeb and/or Norton DNS which will block unsafe sites.

klal, says it past using usb sticks HDD etc

Am thinking about buying a SATA to IDE adaptor. Maplin seem to have one for about 22. Has anyone ever used one or know of a better way to connect SATA Hard drive to IDE motherboard?

What does this adaptor look like? A basic adaptor should be from 2 to 5. I bought one recently including a housing box, power supply for 14. Maplin are not very cheap.

I bought mine here. They are very helpful.

http://www.yoyotech.co.uk/listing-products.php?component=Components

Try searching 'SATA to IDE' on google.

Thanks. Have seen one on-line at PC World for 5, which plugs in to one of the motherboard slots. The one at Maplin is basically an IDE cable with adaptor attached to the end, so doesn't plug in.
Was really wondering if it actually does work, as SATA is much faster than IDE. I assume it all works at IDE speed? Also some seem to be 1 way, some 2 way. (Maplin's only SATA to IDE).

I"ve bought one from amazon in anticipation of
buying a SATA drive. About a fiver I think.
It can plug into the MB or the HD.Two way.
Converts IDE to SATA or vice versa.
PS Its by Iomax. No part no.

I guess the one tyketto is talking about is the 2nd one down. SATA to IDE iomax

Cheers all. Still mulling this one over, but 5 sounds better that 20, so will probably go that route. As the SATA drives don't need Master/Slave jumpers, I assume the IDE motherboard will automatically allocate master & slave? I need to format the SATA drive but using the IDE Hard Drive as the control.

I am used to seeing the blue java circle spinning for a few seconds in loading pages tab - but what is the meaning of a slowly spinning (anti clockwise) grey circle?

Magic Circle?

You can take a Test to see that you have the latest version of Java running:

HERE

My daughter's laptop (Win 7) tends to freeze now and then. I can see the disk is busy as the light stays on througout the freeze. The freezing can last as long as 30 seconds or sometimes all the way upto a couple of minutes. Each time that happens, I get yelled at! Tried various things to stop the freezing (and the yelling!). I've disabled Superfetch (which certainly seemed to help a lot) and turned off a few other non-essential services. However, the freezing does occur, though not with the same frequency as earlier. I've noticed the OS partition on the drive is running rather low. Could this be a contributing factor? Can it lead to disk thrashing?

I've considered expanding the C partition. Would that solve the problem?

Thanks for any pointers.

How much RAM have you got? If RAM is low, windows will use hard drive for memory, and there isn't much hard drive left.
My immediate response would be to transfer a good chunk of non-essential stuff from C drive to D drive. I don't think (may be wrong) that windows will automatically use D drive for essential uses like memory overrun, restore point, back up etc, so it may be struggling to find space on C for those services.

Hi Harrycat,

The system's got 4GB of RAM.

EDIT: Done all the other usual things - clearing out temp files, cleaning of registry, defragmenting drive, etc. All that helped to a good extent.

HC, I've already transferred a lot of stuff from the C drive to D. Things like her documents, music files, etc. In fact, we stopped installing new programmes on C: and use D instead.

Not sure what you mean by 'expanding the C partition'. I think that changing partitions requires formatting.
It's a long time since I had a full hard drive, so not now sure, but I seem to recall that Windows needed 15% space on the hard drive to fulfill all it's functions, so 4.78gb spare may not be enough. I confess I am not up to speed on 7, so others may be more helpful.
Your system info/ task manager (ctrl+Alt+del) should show you how much of your system is being used.

HC - I should be able to increase the size of the C partition by taking space from the D partition (in other words, shrink "D" and create an unallocated partition and then merge it with "C"). Was planning to use a tool such as MiniTool Partition Wizard. My main concern was whether by going thru these steps, do I have a chance of solving the freezing problem?