Suddenly slow startup & unstable extra drive, XP Malware Clear, Livelihood at risk!

My first major geeks forum regarding this was posted on Malware Forum:
http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=178059

I was certified clean by them and recommended I post here to the OS Gods (see other post if you want to see all my logs). In short, I was hit by a trojan that AVG caught and innoculated but the XP system is suffering from two unwanted side effects either from the trojan or the cleanup thereof.

1. Startup is Normal until the Welcome screen and Chime, then it is 2 plus minutes before the desktop appears. In startup, besides services, only my anti-spyware/virus is loading.

2. More disturbing for me professionally is the instability of the my extra fixed drive H: that contains all my photos and videos. I do heavy video and photoshop work. XP is slow reading the drive, becomes unstable as I persist, eventually windows completely crashes or suddenly claims H is no longer there. I can't open Vegas projects that read files from the drive because I get read write errors and it times out. I have a client project due by next Saturday, Jan 10th so I DESPERATELY need to figure this out.

With much effort, I was able to move a smaller project back over the C drive and was able to successfully run Vegas and complete that project. But the C drive cannot handle the bigger projects. I must solve my H drive problem.

OS related I have used CCleaner and paid for and currently running Registry Mechanic (everything was DL from MG). I even used the Startup program my Malware poster suggested, though I know how to use MSConfig to do the same. The only time I get any improvement on the startup is to disable all services which is impractical. I have yet to to anything that improves my H: drive problem.

The computer is less that 6 months old, originally had Vista but I had a local OS God put Windows XP Professional Service Pack 3 (build 2600) on because I did not want to deal with Vista. For a complete system info, I have attached a txt of Balarc Advisor to my post. I know my drives are full and I'm doing some cleaning now and am on board with purchasing another TB USB drive to move video to storage. But it doesn't explain my sudden instability problem with the H: drive and dinosaur slow startup.

Please advise!

Julie
I'm computer savy, teach software for a living but when the OS flakes out on me I call on real tech brains to answer.

 

Re: Suddenly slow startup & unstable extra drive, XP Malware Clear, Livelihood at ris

Not a Bump, More INFO: When H: drive becomes unstable this is the exact error I get is as follows.

“Windows-Delayed Write Failed
Windows was unable to save all the data for the file H:\$BitMap. The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.”

This is despite the H: drive status as Healthy per Registry Mechanic and the fact that I can access and move around the files located on the drive. It is simply slow at best and unstable and crashing at worst.

Thanks,
Julie

 

Re: Suddenly slow startup & unstable extra drive, XP Malware Clear, Livelihood at ris

Try a different USB slot. See if you have the same problem with other USB devices unplugged.