Laptop Problem

[smurfchops]

My Emachines laptop is around five years old. I had a 'new' hard drive fitted a few months ago and all was OK. However today, keeps crashing, sometimes I get the main screen but can't click on logos, keep clicking and eventually switched on and off, highlighting keeps getting stuck and won't highlight whole word properly ... Sort of OK but not sure if I can rely on it now. When I eventually manage to open up, I have to double click on everything instead of single click, and sometimes nothing will open up - or close down. Seems to start from Hibernate sometimes, even though I have switched off properly (eventually). Am I due for a new machine ? Took hard drive out and give a good 'blow around' as well !! Not technical, is there anything I can do before I get a new one ?? I have cleared cookies etc and backed photos and documents up on memory stick just in case ... Thanks all

[pinkyboyid]

Are you able to access Safe Mode at Bootup. If so check to see if the system appears to be more stable.

You should be able to access Safe Mode by continually pressing the F8 key whilst the system is starting up. You can also select Safe Mode with Networking from the menu.

If the system appears to be stable the next thing you can try is a Startup with Last Known Good Configuration which is accessible from the F8 key press startup menu.

If the problem persists you could then try a system restore (if available)

[SlackAlice]

Do as pinkybovid suggests but rather than a system restore do a diskcheck.

To enable a disk check, go to Computer or My Computer, highlight the HDD drive, right click and select Properties from the list.
From the window that pops up select Tools and under Error checking click 'Check now'. In the next window make sure there's a tick in the 'Automatically fix file system errors' and click Start.

Windows will then say something like 'unable to check disk, because it's either locked or in use, do you want to schedule a disk check on next reboot?'

Click Yes and re-start your pc.

The Disk Check takes some time so I'd suggest you leave it on all night. As you have a laptop make sure it's plugged in to the mains otherwise the laptop will switch off and the Disk check will be abandoned.

[smurfchops]

Thanks, I've done a System Restore and it seems much better, however the right hand scroll doesn't always work, nor does the highlight include whole sentences sometimes. Anyway I will see how it goes, at least I have some other things to try now. Thanks again ! By the way why do these things happen?