Problem re-installing laptop

I don't know what's going on... I got something on my laptop which combofix, smitfraudfix, spybot and then hijackthis couldnt fix, so I re-installed the laptop. Now when the laptop gets to checking the system's performance, it freezes up when it gets to the point when the "ads" say "The power to find everything".

What should I do? I already re-installed my laptop like 5 times... I'm waiting for it right now... Maybe it just takes a long time... It's being stuck at that point for like an hour.

I'm thinking something might be getting through my wi-fi. Reason I decided to re-install the laptop is because I turned it off and then turned it on... Once it got to the windows screen it would restart. I had that happen on two different computers using the same network. It's driving me insane

Start with the HD. Download the manufacturer's diagnostic tools, burn them to a CD & boot the machine with it. That's the HD manufacturer, not the laptop manufacturer. If there are any bad blocks, they will show.

Note on wifi: A unsecured wifi connection doesn't mean that the person can read or write to machines on the network.

Ok I'll try that... What does it mean if a pc restates automatically once it gets to the logo screen?

The boot process is being interrupted. Try F8 to get to safe mode. If you have to reinstall again, wipe the drive clean first.

I have two questions here:

1) Is there any drivers in vista that, if missing, would have the laptop freeze at random time?

2) If so, is there any utilities out there that searches for missing drivers? (I need this no matter what the reply is for question 1)

Thank You.

[Edit] If this gives any help in me getting help, The laptop doesn't remember the height I set my start bar at. (The bar that holds the start button, the clock, opened windows, etc.

Missing drivers I am not sure. Vista is buggy and some of the drivers out there aren't very good. If you are missing any drivers you would know this by going into device manager and you would have a yellow exclamation mark next to any device that is missing its driver.

The start bar wouldn't be affected by drivers as far as I know. Not sure what would cause that issue.

Freezing during use is usually a hardware problem. An interrupted boot is probably a software problem.

I don't think the fan works on the laptop.

Anyway to check the fan?

[EDIT] Besides the fan, what else would make the laptop freeze? Am I now cursed to be able to use the laptop in winter only?

[EDIT #2] Nevermind, the fan works, Firefox just froze and now the entire laptop is useless... Ctrl+alt+delete doesn't work, or anything else (by that I mean it doesnt recognize the keyboard, or doesn't seem to)

I just got an error message that say

"Logon process has failed to create the security options dialog.


Failure - Security Options"

[EDIT #3] That message seems to come up after I press Ctrl+Alt+Delete...

Keep in mind, this is after I get my laptop to original factory shipped condition... The recovery install.

What I find interesting is that the laptop works perfectly fine in Safe Mode and Safe Mode with Networking

[EDIT #4] Is there a true free registry cleaner for Windows Vista out there? Thank you.


[EDIT #5] I have a question, does the registry re-install with the recovery re-installation?

The registry re-installs when you use the recovery partition but all that is worthless if there are bad blocks on the HD. That's why I suggested the diagnostic tools, which you said you were going to try.

I will as soon as I find a working pc that writes data to CDs

My laptop is made by HP, so the HD is HP?


I just remembered that I have the clips on the battery broken (the things that hold the battery to the laptop) and there where times when I wanted to untangle the cords or move something when I accidentally/intentionally (whichever the case may be) unplugged the power cord from the laptop, having it turn off like that.

Just throwing that out there... I'm not really good with computers so I'm not sure if this is relevant.

HP doesn't make hard drives. You have to open it or search Google to find the manufacturer.

Okay, I got to the page with the utilities on it for the harddrive (I think that's right... got here from google).


My hard drive is Fujitsu, and it says there that it's for Fujitsu, but I'm not sure about which one to choose... another thing that makes me wonder that at the description for each tool it says "Fujitsu Branded Toshiba"... my laptop is HP versus Toshiba so i don't know what to choose.



Any help here?

(Also, how do I download the utilities there? Every time I click on the link to download it just refreshes the page... the status shows the same link as the address bar...)

Fujitsu sold it's HD business to Toshiba. That's why you see that. If it's an IDE drive, use the site below.

http://majorgeeks.com/Fujitsu_Diagnostic_IDE_d2856.html

It's ATA