Consistent Freezing after startup

Hello, here are the details of my system...

Dell XPS M1330
4gb RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate, Service Pack 2

I run AVG Free, Spybot, MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and Super Anti Spyware on a regular basis. AVG is constantly running in background.

Yesterday my system unexpectedly locked up/froze as I was performing routine tasks (I had Outlook, Firefox, Skype and iTunes open, which is normal for me). I rebooted the machine (I had to forcibly do this, Ctrl-Alt-Del was not responding). On reboot the machine lasts for about 60 seconds after startup and then freezes again and I have to forcibly reboot.

Booting into safe mode allows me a better run at things, I have updated and run the above scanners, and installed avast, but they have found very little (just an odd internet cookie) which I have cleaned up, but still the problem persists.

Sometimes when i boot in safe mode it does load, it pauses at loading driver "crcdisk.sys" and freezes there, not properly booting, if i wait a long time (+5 minutes) it will eventually just reboot itself back into a normal session, and then the problem comes back. In fact at the time of writing this I am struggling to even get into the laptop on safe mode at all, worryingly.

I have taken a HJT log but that is currently unaccesible until I can get back onto the laptop, I am writing this post from another machine.

Any advice on what I have (is it a virus?) or possible steps to resolving it would be much appreciated. I don't know where to go having run all the virus checkers as a logical next step.

Thanks in advance,
Russell

This could be a hardware issue. Your power supply could be failing, or the system could be overheating (check temps in BIOS), or you could have some bulging capacitors.

I'll move this to the Vista forum for now. If it is virus related which I would not put at the top of the list then we can move it back later.

Thank you for moving thread and earlier response re: hardware.

*** Update ***

I managed to get Avast to run a complete deep scan + archived files in safe mode after a number of failed attempts and that seemed to have sorted it somewhat, it identified a file which was quite large but from a trusted source, but i have deleted and things are relatively back to normal.

I am still not sure, as it has had issues before so I am going to monitor things over next week and see developments.

Quote:

---

it pauses at loading driver "crcdisk.sys" and freezes there

---

Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD, and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

Did they not use a Fujitsu in that model?

Seatools will work on some of the Toshiba hdds.

Quote:

---

Seatools will work on some of the Toshiba hdds.

---

This is what I tried on several occasions, and it never worked.

Some one must like me AT times then. ;)