System too slow, scandisk not working.. using win98SE

[XcomCheetah]

My windows has started doing weird things.. although i have Norton antivirus and also zonealarm.. so i don;t think it can be a virus.. actually i feel there r couple of spywares... and i tried to unistall one but it still is there.. and also when i try to use scandisk it stops after 10 tries saying that some program is trying to access ur harddisk.. also the harddisk light is usually blinking for most of the time.. also disk defragmentation is not working saying first the scandisk should be run..

i think some registry errors there... but i m bit hesitant to install any other software that it might make the matter worse.. i can;t format the harddisk cuz i m in the middle of the semester... any wise suggestion u can give so i can keep the current windows for another 2 months..

different programs have started taking a lot longer time.. like Word and Outlook Express.. even Mycomputer take quite a bit of time sometime...

i think i need two programs one registry cleaner and another uninstaller.. which can uninstall any program which doesn;t have its own uninstall shield..

 

[johnlog]

><FONT size=1>also disk defragmentation is not working saying first the scandisk should be run.. <

Ignore that warning and run ScanDisk anyway. It will work. Defrag should work OK also. If a similar warning message pops up ignore it.

I ran NSW DiskDoctor and it checks C: OK, but when it goes to check D: I get a message it cannot find it. To check if my ribbon cables are installed correctly. They are. D: acces is perfect.

>different programs have started taking a lot longer time.. like Word and Outlook Express.. even Mycomputer take quite a bit of time sometime... <<<

check your free space on C:. If your swap file is on C: and is short of disk space Windows cannot use all the swap file and will run very slowly. I have my swap file on partition H:. That way it does not use up C: free space.

You can also have roBOTS on your computer. A free program for Home users is Ad-aware. Run it and it looks for and find roBOTs on your hard drive. If it finds any you can select to have the program remove/delete them. On one of my computers it had 17 BOTs in the Registry and a total of 33 BOTs on all partitions. Ad-aware removed them all. I have ZoneAlarm installed and McAfee anti virus program. Still got all those BOTs.

One I get all the time is DOUBLECLICK. Use Windows SEARCH program to find doubleclick cookies. Once you find them select to delete them. If you have IE 6 installed it automatically can block a lot of spy cookies trying to be isntalled on your computer drives.

I recommend you buy Norton System Works 2002 and install it. Use the programs it installs. WinDoctor can clean out excess garbage in your Registry.

</FONT>

 

[Bglad]

How long has this install been running? Spyware and things like that can cause this. However I am fastidious aobut keeping spyware out but I still get symptoms like this when my install is getting old and it is time for a fresh reinstall.

 

[XcomCheetah]

i check msconfig and found a bizarre program loading it is "zjzsepc" .. it is loading from windows temp..
i uncheck it and then restarted but it again loaded.. rather two instances of it are loaded.. and no matter how many times i uncheck it whenever windows start it also start.. its an .exe program and also has .dll file with it.. and another one which is file type.. just three file with this name in the temp directory.. may be this is the culprit..

any idea how to get rid of it..?
Thanks for the suggestion all the way

ps. i managed to run scandisk and defrag after loading the windows with step by step configuration and loading no programs.. perfromance has improved slightly but not enough.. still slow.. but i m afraid of this program not going out of my startup.. btw it doesn't appear if i hit ctrl-alt-del..