New to vista... having problems

[gunnar]

I am not very good with computers and vista especially. I got a new sony computer with vista pre-installed and have had troubles with it from the start. I am unable to download anything onto the computer. When attempting to install anything i get the windows installer screen and it says preparing to install... and it does not change. This is when I am doing anything from loading a file online to a cd i put into the drive. My first thought was to restore the computer to the original settings, but the restore center installed freezes and does not work, and the usb drives do not detect anything. Since it was pre-installed i have no vista or boot disks. I have to get vista reinstalled on the computer or fix this problem without downloading anything onto the computer... any suggestions? I have another sony computer available with vista on it if that helps.

[simonb]

I've Read your post as i'm a curious monkey...and my first thought that came to mind is this...Major Issue!

First things first. I'm going to know what OS are you running...i.e. what version of Vista. 32bits, 64bits, you can find that info in the control panel under the systems tab.

Secondly, you wrote that when you download a file or execute a file from the CD drive your system can not install from that drive and just goes to freeze up on install. If that's the case, i suspect a viral or malware issue on the computer and you'd enjoy performing a thorough virus scan using a up to date virus detection software. All sectors of the PC as to be scanned, disk boot sectors, system memory also, and all partitions.

If no viruses are found nowhere, and or quarantined, and problems persist, you would have to perform a Vista recovery at that point, your pc would go back to original state.

At this point, your second laptop is no savy saviour and is useless to recover a Vista OS.

hope this helps you, and good luck finding your infectious virus and getting rid of it...(that's only my suspicion...)

Simon

[gunnar]

It is a 32bit and no viruses were detected, I guess doing vista recovery is the only option but if there are any other ideas on what could be happening it would probably better than losing some of the info on the computer.

[Terry60]

Is device manager flagging any unknown devices or error conditions/ bad drivers ?

[simonb]

ok, then you can always create a backup on a DVD or CD to keep the files you want in the future...that's to be down with Imageburn for example to backup your files for further use.

You can also double check the BIOS for optimal settings feature and see if everything's okay there. If everything's good, your option would be to reinstall at that point sadly, you would have to creat a backup of all documents, files and programs you want to keep on a seperate media, before reinstalling.

Good luck

[delvin.friends]

didnt you create recovery cds when you first started windows???

or is your computer an old one?

there is a virus/malware in your computer that is obvious.

so even a scan cannot reveal anything.

to reinstall windows, download windows from anywhere and then copy the product key of windows from the screen obtained by right clicking "computer" in start menu and clicking properties.

[simonb]

there is a virus/malware in your computer that is obvious.

so even a scan cannot reveal anything.
I only suspected viral or malware...but maybe this group of people can really say or do something and\or anything about :
Antivirus Software: Kaspersky Lab - Protection Against Malware and Cybercrime

P.S. uninstall previous virus detection software prior to installing the trial version of K.A.S.

Addendum:

I only suspected viral or malware...but maybe this group of people can really say or do something and\or anything about :
Antivirus Software: Kaspersky Lab - Protection Against Malware and Cybercrime

P.S. uninstall previous virus detection software prior to installing the trial version of K.A.S.[/quote]