How do I stop the stalling?

April 6, 2009 3:11 PM

Allright-- my windows (Vista) is funky: can I fix this without reinstalling? More inside.

First, the specs:
Windows Vista, AMD9500 Phenom processor, 4GB RAM, HD2400XT graphics card, and 500GB hard drive, 200GB used (plus an external HD, mouse, keyboard, webcam, monitor, all that jazz)

Now, the problem:

Starting about two weeks ago, whenever I move a file, the "Moving X file(s): Y MB/GB, Z Seconds Remaining" pop-up shows up. As it gets to "0 Seconds Remaining", it just stalls.

Whenever I delete a file, the pop-up "Deleting X file(s): Y MB/GB, Z Seconds Remaining" shows up. As it gets to "0 Seconds Remaining", it stalls.

Anytime I move a file on my internal hard drive, the same thing happens. "Moving X file...." etc.


I haven't touched my registry (to my knowledge), or screwed with my internals any more than changing the "Hibernate/Sleep after X Minutes" or the screen saver in several months.

Whenever this happens, I open the task manager (Ctrl/Alt/Del), hit "End Program" a few times, then the window opens up to let me close and restart windows explorer. So I do. And then life goes on as usual.

Anyone have any idea what's wrong/how I fix this?
(Preferably without reinstalling my op system)

Thank you!

posted by Seeba to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Vista's file transferring abilities have always been a bit on the slow side, compared to XP. Service Pack 1 helped speed things up a little, but still not on par with XP. I can't imagine why it's not wanting to transfer at all though.

Two thoughts, are you all up to date on the latest patches? Including SP1?

Secondly, have you restarted the computer and still experience the problem? I fix a lot of computers and sometimes, frustratingly, a simple restart ends up fixing a problem I have no idea how it started.

If those don't help you out, I can suggest installing TeraCopy: http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

It hooks into the operating system and takes over the file transfer protocol. Once installed, you don't have to do anything extra and Vista will now use the TeraCopy program to move and copy your files when you drag and drop from one folder to another. I always install it on a fresh Vista install because it's faster than the default anyway. It's a stable program that I've never had any problems with. Hope that can help with your problem. Good luck.
posted by sepsis at 4:21 PM on April 6 [1 favorite]

Do you have SP1 installed? A problem similar to this was fixed in SP1.

You can also try a file copying program when copying large amounts of data (large files and/or many files). One I've used with some success is TeraCopy.
posted by Simon Barclay at 4:21 PM on April 6

LOL... or whatever sepsis said.
posted by Simon Barclay at 4:21 PM on April 6

Might see if this works for you
posted by deezil at 4:22 PM on April 6

Look in your event viewer and see if there are any events relating to the problem. Specifically, disk timeouts or bad blocks.

And defragment.
posted by gjc at 7:26 PM on April 6