HELP - Nothing in Vista will Launch, everything hangs up!

Help!

My computer was running perfectly fine last night. No problems at all.

Today when I turned it on everything seemed fine. Vista (Premium 32 bit) started up as usual and my desktop was ready to go.

But... I then tried launching MS Outlook. PROBLEM. All I got was the spinning circle thingy, just constantly spinning. Not only did Outlook never launch, but the system was basically frozen (except for the spinning circle). Nothing else worked, period. And the ONLY way to break out of this was to power down the system by holding in the power button. But once I re-start the computer and try to launch something, the same thing happens -- it gets hung up on the spinning circle without launching.

I've now gone through this exact same process (power up, power down) several times, both in Regular mode and Safe mode. Safe mode seems to work (I think) but not Regular mode. I tried running Avast anti-virus, but it's getting hung up at around 3% or so.

I'm beginning to get very nervous.

Any thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

Thanks!


P.S. -- I'm on a different computer right now, obviously.

 

I'm not sure but you could try booting from a CD and running run some diagnostics like virus scanners and a boot scan. bartpe and knoppix are such bootable environments. I'm no expert in them though.

 

That makes 2 of us.

Thanks, Phil.

 

I have to bump this...

 

You've run antivirus scans in safe mode, and it still hangs?

What were you doing last night? Did you download or install anything, visit any out of the ordinary websites, etc?

 

You should also check whether Vista installed any new updates which may be causing these sudden problems.

 

Can you get into the task manager to see if it's showing anything as consuming an inordinant amount of resources?

 

Also, while you're in task manager
click the performance tab and click the resource monitor. See if any services/programs is hogging the hdd.

 

Safe Mode--> System Restore?

As Bog was saying I think it might have to do with MS Updates etc. If that doesn't fix it an OS Repair/Reinstall might be applicable here.

 

Thanks guys. Something urgent came up so I've been gone all day (funny how priorities can change so quickly) but I'll try some of these things in the morning with a fresh start.

 

Right, usually the process can be started by pressing one of the function keys right after the bios.

Not sure which function key Sony uses.

 

UPDATE:

Well, I've been working on this all day. It's a slow and painful process when the system freezes up all the time. I tried doing virus scans (I'm clean), de-frags, several System Restores, and whatever else I could think of. Nothing worked.

But then... Phil suggested doing a Check Disk, which has been running for hours now.

Bottom line: it looks like the Check Disk may have done the trick. So far everything seems to be working... fingers crossed.

Thanks to everyone for the help, and especially to Phil for the great tip!


P.S. -- After this scare, I think it's time to look into backing up my entire hard drive, not just important files. That way I can just swap drives if ever necessary.

I have an unopened copy of Acronis True Image 11 Home somewhere in my draw, and I'll look for a good deal on a WD Passport external drive. But before I buy that -- is this the best way to backup the entire drive? Or has something better emerged?

 

If your Vaio has eSATA you should get an external drive with eSATA. Much faster than USB.

 

Thanks, but no on the FW having eSata...