IF you should decided to restore your computer back to factory, I would suggest you do a fresh backup, no matter when the last one was done.

You realize that this just gets worse. Is there no way to transfer the data from one computer to another or from one EHD to one on another computer?

Of course you can transfer files, documents etc. But you cannot transfer programs - they must be installed to establish registry entries. If you create a fresh backup, restore you computer to factory and then restore the backup, you will have your documents and files such as pictures and downloads there.

I've used Windows Easy Transfer with great success at least a dozen times.

Thanks Drac. I am looking at the site now. Need to read completely and no doubt will be sending you an email. So you can transfer files from one pc to another but you can't transfer games, correct? (no tranfer from one EHD to another)
I am wondering though, if a restore wipes everything out or off the pc, how can you restore the backup?

You can transfer anything that does not require registry entries to work.
Most modern adventure games make use of registry entries.
So it is better to transfer the installers rather than the game folders.

Exactly what Jenny said about programs such as games.

If you use this factory reset it does not wipe everything off the PC... what it does is reset your PC back to exactly like it was when you first bought it. Vista will be reinstalled along with any other software etc. that HP put on the original PC. It will be exactly like it was the first time you booted it up. First thing you would do is start downloading and installing updates - probably for many hours depending on your internet speed. With my slow speeds, it's taken a couple of days sometimes.

If you use Windows Easy Transfer, you will copy your data and user settings to something like an exterior hard drive. Then you would unplug the EHD and do whatever the instructions tell you to reset the PC back to factory. Plug the EHD back in, start up Windows Easy Transfer and move all your user settings and data back on to the newly restored PC.

Your downloads will be transferred. Assuming the game installers Jenny mentioned are in the downloads, you would just reinstall your games from there.

Or like I said, just take it to a shop.

Thank you!

New issue. I removed some items from my EHD before I decided what I was going to do about a possible restore. I then ran CCleaner and Registry and scanned for issues and clicked on Fix selected issues. I backed them up and hit fix selected issues. Now, all my programs on my EHD have been removed, it is 100% useable space. Can someone tell me if I can restore the files?

CCleaner does not remove actual files, just junk. I'm wondering if CCleaner removed registry entries it couldn't find because the programs were on an EHD? Did you have actual programs installed on the EHD?

I'm not going to lie - this might not be a bad thing. From some of the things you told me that were on that EHD, this might be a good thing that this drive is now clean. It sounded like it was full of things you didn't need, were obsolete and were actually not even useable.

Still not sure why a scan with CCleaner would have done this though. Maybe Jenny will know...

Last night I did the same thing and had no problem. So I decided to remove a little more and was only keeping the games after checking them first and a few downloaded software items that I wanted to keep. Well, I thought I wanted to keep them. You could be right as to why it removed everything but again it did not do that last night. Gee, wait until my youngest granddaughter see that all of her games are gone! She is not going to be happy with me.
So are you saying even though I backed up the registry it's all gone? No way can I pick and choose what I might want?

If you are talking about having the EHD connected when you did this, I really have no idea. I've never had CCleaner affect anything on my EHD even when connected. But then I don't install anything over there - trying to play games over the USB connection can be problematic. I only install on my C drive. I'm a bit perplexed, but maybe Jenny or Inland will know what happened.

Are these games your granddaughter likes ones that you can simply reinstall? Are they from disks? Or are they from downloads that you can reinstall from?

Oh wow, not sure where they all came from but I think most were from GOTD, I don't think any of them were from disk. It just dawned on me, I had a disk in the drive, that wouldn't affect anything would it have?
I don't remember having a problem with any games that were on the EHD, even my adventure games. I'm very unhappy with this situation because I'm not sure what else I had from years back that I wanted to keep. Also, the situation here on the homefront is not conducive to harmony within ones self. The fact that my husband left the hospital when the doctor wanted him to stay for observation and more tests is upsetting and his belligerent attitude is seriously getting to me.
Ok, I'll wait a bit to see if anyone knows what the heck I did!
Again Drac...........thanks so much for your help!

If you backed up the registry before running ccleaner, you should be able to restore it to the way it was before running ccleaner.
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/faq/using/how-do-i-restore-registry-backups

Going by your previous post, you may already have done this.

I'm not sure what you mean by this

Ccleaner might remove registry entries if it couldn't see the drive (if you had it unplugged). It shouldn't remove the files on the EHD (though see the end of my post).
If you browse to your EHD using Windows Explorer, do you see anything there? If your files really are gone, there may be a problem with the EHD, the USB port the EHD is plugged into, or the cable connecting them.


Could be due to an intermittent connection to the EHD.


No.

EDIT --

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This person in the ***piriform forum*** reported what they consider to be a bug with ccleaner that sounds similar to your experience. Piriform is the company that makes ccleaner.

Other people were unable to reproduce the bug.
http://forum.piriform.com/?showtopic=38554

I think the current version of ccleaner is version 4.19.
The post is from April 2013. However if this problem doesn't normally happen, they may not have "fixed" it. The "Professional" and "Professional Plus" versions do have an option for "Complete Cleaning" which could erase
https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download

I've never used the "Professional" version, however if the free version is a partially deactivated version of the "Professional" version, the free version also has the latent capability to "clean" a hard drive -- and a registry problem on your computer could cause the free version of ccleaner to delete files when you don't want it to.

If this was my computer doing this, I wouldn't use Ccleaner again until after doing a fresh install of Windows. Registry problems that cause issues like this are almost impossible to track down, and could be associated with other hidden issues.

I assume you've done a thorough chkdsk (with surface scan) of your hard drive to rule out a hard drive problem. Your current problems with registry may also be the result of previous virus/malware infections -- even though the malware is removed, some of the bad stuff it did remains behind.

Thanks Jenny. What I was saying is that instead of the EHD being full with 0% available it now shows 100% free. Also the EHD was plugged in and I found one enty for 11/14/14, hit the merge button and not sure where to look but nothing has been added to my EHD.
Why are all the programs listed in the "Tools" uninstall in Ccleaner?
What are the little white icons on my desktop with a green window on the left with a blue arrow at the bottom? I was going to send a picture of my desktop but having no luck.
Because I know so little about the computer I am always looking at a quick fix "button" or solution. At this late stage of the game I don't think things are going to change. I have lazy brain syndrome.

Well it sounds like it did the same thing to you as it did to the guy at the piriform forum that I linked to earlier -- deleted all your files. Is there nothing left on your EHD? Did you check?

The only part of ccleaner I've ever used is the registry cleaner.
I've ignored everything else.
Did you get a picture?
Is the problem you don't know how to upload it?
You can't upload at Gameboomers. Instead you have to have an account at some place like photobucket or imageshack or wherever they upload pictures these days. Then you put the link to the upload in a post at Gameboomers.

Hi Jenny. Sorry for the delay in replying. My daughter and her family came for dinner so I was a tad busy. My daughter looked at my pc and said that there are many places that have downloads, not all are in the same place. Guess I could have done that but some of it didn't look familiar. Also some of the downloaded files had been opened and some were still zipped and since I had gotten rid of some of the orange keys from GOTD they can no longer be activated. D. did download a game that had been opened, don't know how many more can be done that way. Jenny, quite honestly I don't know how to do much of anything on the pc and actually was going to send the pictures of my desktop and some other items to someone but could not figure out how to attach them to the email. Also, no I don't think I know how to upload the pictures. I can turn the computer on and not too much more than that. I do get myself into trouble though because if I think that's the way I should do something I do it. Sort of like the bull in the china closet! Gutsey but not too well informed.
I shall try the process again tomorrow. Again it seems that the games or remnants of are on the computer but some not complete.
Also I found something in my documents asvr.exe. I clicked on it and only got "problem with shortcut". I do remember deleteing something that was odd from my EHD, had no idea what it was, Could that have cleaned it out?

Thank you for your help Jenny. Going to hit the sack early again.
Terri

"Also I found something in my documents asvr.exe. I clicked on it and only got "problem with shortcut"."

*Always* be wary of double-clicking .exe files when you don't know what they are. That's just asking for trouble.

Yup. It may have been a piece of a virus left behind by a virus-checker.

What mj2c and Jenny said... All I found is that it could have been left behind from a free fake security program that was downloaded at one time.

I had it in my EHD, so thought I had put it there. Like I said, I looked at the items before I removed them, not that that mattered much. lol
Can anyone tell me why I can't do a backup? It appears that I have plenty of free space for one now. I've tried and all I get is that the last back up failed.
Also I ran AdwCleaner just to see what it did. It mentioned several items that were connected to Alawar, I was surprised but I did not clean it.
Also, currently I notice if I misspell a word it does not underline it. Looks like I've really done a number on this PC!

It depends on what software you are using to do backups.

It's Microsoft Windows Backup. It's odd though I don't think it used to do the backups when I first got the pc then it started backing up the system.

Are you sure? Vista Home Premium doesn't have a built-in backup. If it is one of the business, ultimate or enterprise versions, then they do have backup.

I don't believe I d/loaded anything. I thought it must have come installed. I opened it up to double check and that's what it said. Nuts! Am I off again?

We ARE continuing to talk about your Vista PC like you started in this thread, right? I ask because your Window 8.1 PC DOES have backup which is called File History.