Malwarebytes Issues on HP laptop

a reply to: DontTreadOnMe

Yep, Windows 10 still has defrag... Type it into the Windows search bar. It should be under disk optimisation.

Defragging won't have a massive impact on speed of general operations, it will just make opening larger files and programs a bit more fluid. Downloading and/or moving stuff around should be faster, too. Also, it helps avoid corrupted files. It basically rewrites a new index as it reorganises everything.

Bad sectors on a drive is normal .
I used a drive for years with 200 bad sectors (retired it , though it was still working well) .
Watch to see if that number starts climbing .


If a program wont start , reboot .
If a program still wont start , run chkdsk x (drive letter) /f /r .
If antivirus wont start , run Defender anti-virus (or another) first.
Viruses are set to disable anti-virus programs .

originally posted by: Gothmog
Bad sectors on a drive is normal .
I used a drive for years with 200 bad sectors (retired it , though it was still working well) .
Watch to see if that number starts climbing .

Absolutely, I had a drive slowly die over a period of six months and the only giveaway was the increased numbers of bad sectors every time I ran scandisk.



On a side note, I don't know about you, but I love to display my old hard drives at work. I remove the cover so the platters and actuating arm are visible. It's a great way to educate colleagues as to why their disks have failed and they've lost all their data.

Somehow it eases their pain. However, I don't tell them the data is still there and I won't waste time and money to retrieve their precious movies and tunes that they downloaded illegally.

a reply to: Encia22
a reply to: Gothmog

Is it a good idea to run defrag and/or scandisk periodically?

And, on HD or SSD, or both.

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

OK, my husband found this MB Support Tool.
support.malwarebytes.com...

It works.
It ran a diagnostic, did some update and MB opened.

Thanks! Another tool added to my arsenal.

Now, if I could just remember all of the tools I have, where they are, and what each is for...

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Encia22
a reply to: Gothmog

Is it a good idea to run defrag and/or scandisk periodically?

And, on HD or SSD, or both.

I used to run scandisk about every 10 days, once a week on work PCs that were used more heavily. Defrag less often (once every two months) unless colleagues complained of slow performance.

On a HD it is important to keep it healthy. A SSD won't impact performance, but it will help to keep things organised. However, I have much less experience with SSD drives, perhaps Gothmog can advise better.

a reply to: Gothmog

The laptop often runs at 100% of the Disk for several minutes.
Not everyday, maybe once a week or so,

Then with the updates, it runs at 100% for hours, even after the updates are completed/installed.
Seems to re reading and writing something.

a reply to: Encia22

Scandisk isn't the same as chkdsk, right?

How do you run scandisk?

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Encia22

Scandisk isn't the same as chkdsk, right?

How do you run scandisk?

Actually, my bad. Scandisk won't work for NTFS file systems. It only works for older versions of Windows (I still run some XP machines).

So CHKDSK is what you need to use as Gothmog rightly said. They basically do the same job.

Sorry for the confusion. Old terminology dies hard.

I had a hell of a time disabling malwarebytes, it is not what it used to be. The uninstall did not work, it did not take it out of the machine and it kept downloading again. It intigrated into everything. I finally disabled it so it cannot work and will never reinstall it. It was actually sending things to malwarebytes site to check things out, everything on the computer was slow loading and I identified what was gobbling up my internet connection. Even the credit card info was going there. I opted for the free version but somehow it upgraded and was scanning everything through malwarebytes. There are still some parts of it on the computer, I could not remove it, but I did manage to override some of the stuff and it is not reloading yet. It took me over five hours to get the thing totally disabled.

Something could have hijacked it but I know one thing, it's file was two gigabytes when I started, and that means it is actually a trojan or virus, there were files saved from almost everywhere I had gone searching. I did some checking and many others had the same problem and they said that after uninstalling it was still there and active taking up a lot of their bandwith and RAM. So, it is not just me, there must have been fifty people commenting on it. You would think that a security company would make their product unhackable...so I think that it was a possible intended thing. Once removed, I found hacking software on the computer once Windows Defender was working right. I also got rid of my other antivirus because it put it's secure search feature on all of the browsers which made it hard to investigate what I want to investigate. It was only allowing me to get info it deemed correct. No more of that free antivirus software for me, I will just get a copy of my daughters commercial antivirus if Defender redirects me from what I am searching for, but getting rid of Defender is really hard, it also tracks, but ccleaner does dump it's saved files anyway.

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Gothmog

The laptop often runs at 100% of the Disk for several minutes.
Not everyday, maybe once a week or so,

Then with the updates, it runs at 100% for hours, even after the updates are completed/installed.
Seems to re reading and writing something.

What I've noticed about updates is that much of the configuration is done at shutdown and startup. I believe that many of the running processes can only be updated in those two phases and not when the PC is actively running. Processor speed is probably the defining factor in how long they take to complete.

originally posted by: Encia22

originally posted by: Gothmog
Bad sectors on a drive is normal .
I used a drive for years with 200 bad sectors (retired it , though it was still working well) .
Watch to see if that number starts climbing .

Absolutely, I had a drive slowly die over a period of six months and the only giveaway was the increased numbers of bad sectors every time I ran scandisk.

On a side note, I don't know about you, but I love to display my old hard drives at work. I remove the cover so the platters and actuating arm are visible. It's a great way to educate colleagues as to why their disks have failed and they've lost all their data.

Somehow it eases their pain. However, I don't tell them the data is still there and I won't waste time and money to retrieve their precious movies and tunes that they downloaded illegally.

I do the same.
I have an original SCSI drive that I take sometimes .
2 ft. long and about 15 lbs.
And a whole 20mb

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Encia22

Scandisk isn't the same as chkdsk, right?

How do you run scandisk?

Scandisk is ran through Windows.
Not even close.
Use chkdsk x (drive letter) /f /r always
In an elevated (administrator) command prompt.

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Gothmog

The laptop often runs at 100% of the Disk for several minutes.
Not everyday, maybe once a week or so,

Then with the updates, it runs at 100% for hours, even after the updates are completed/installed.
Seems to re reading and writing something.

Check to see if you have disk defragmenter (optimize disk) set to run weekly.

originally posted by: Encia22

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Encia22

Scandisk isn't the same as chkdsk, right?

How do you run scandisk?

Actually, my bad. Scandisk won't work for NTFS file systems. It only works for older versions of Windows (I still run some XP machines).

So CHKDSK is what you need to use as Gothmog rightly said. They basically do the same job.

Sorry for the confusion. Old terminology dies hard.

Scandisk runs by right-clicking on a drive , properties , tools , error checking (warning , it will always tell you no problem found . RUN ANY WAY)

a reply to: Gothmog

That is M$ program on win10?

a reply to: Gothmog

So, which should be run regularly... scandisk or chkdsk?

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Gothmog

That is M$ program on win10?

Yes,
Click search , then search for optimize .

originally posted by: DontTreadOnMe
a reply to: Gothmog

So, which should be run regularly... scandisk or chkdsk?

Scandisk if no evident problems. (this is not as good as chkdsk)
Chkdsk .

There is really no need to run regularly , unless you are checking the increase in bad sectors .
Which would be ever 2 - 3 weeks in that case .

Glad you got it fixed!

Seems like you have lots of 'help' here now, so I'll just throw in my .02 about a couple subjects y'all are discussing and bow out.

Chkdsk vs scandisc frequency - You really shouldn't run either of these programs frequently. They are really only intended to be run if there are known problems. Running them repeatedly will actually create problems because they repeatedly re-allocate disc space.

Bad HD sectors - First, a bad sector on a SSD is considerably different than a bad sector on an HDD. They work on entirely different principles of physics. Regardless, and without getting into some complicated electronics, any bad sector issues should be viewed as a very credible reason to begin shopping for a new SSD. Once one shows up, more will follow. And the reason for this is, the first bad sector was caused by some kind of a malfunction. If this malfunction happened once, it will happen again, and again. Memory is cheap, cheapest it's ever been. Migrate from a defective drive to a new drive sooner rather than later. Just plan your migration carefully, keeping in mind how your OS mounts and from where. Same for your apps.

Those are the big takeaways here. Some folks like to tinker with their stuff endlessly. That's fine I guess, for people who have nothing but time on their hands. However, in my world we don't have the time nor the money to take those risks. If it looks broken, it probably is. Ditch it and replace it. Components are cheap compared to downtime and data loss. WAY cheaper!!!