why is my spybot so slow

Hi, I could use some advice. I have used spybot for 2 years. I was using 1.5.2.2 and it always took a little over an hour to do a scan. recently it slowed down and this week it slowed down so much that it would take several days to do a scan.

I have read through several threads and I do not think that cache or cookies or a fragmented HD is the problem. I am regular about those things.

I updated to 1.6 and ran updates on my computer so I now have sp3. Still have the same problem.

I have xp Media center Ed. 2002/Sp3/1.6 Ghz/ 960 Mb of RAM.

Thanks for any input, Debbie

depending on the size.....

of your hard drive(s) if will take longer the more files and stuff that you have. How big is your hard drive? What file format? Ntfs, fat32? Have you tried scanning in safe mode and seeing if the scan is faster there? Thanks, and let me know as soon as you can the answers to these questions. Also, feel free to ask questions if you do not understand what i meant. Have a nice day.

thanks

thanks for your response. my hard drive is 88 Gb and 49 Gb are in use. You'll have to explain how to get information on the other things.

I haven't tried to run it in safe mode this week but in the past it has't made it faster. I will try that now to see if it is different.

Debbie

Debbie,

What antivirus software do you have?

To get some kind of time relativity, how long does it take your antivirus to scan your operating system drive (normally the C drive or partition).

If it is not too much effort to temporarily turn off your antivirus (off line of course) can you do a Spybot scan with the antivirus turned off and see what difference that makes to Spybot's scan time? (I'm not suggesting you uninstall the antivirus, but some like Avast! have a simple one click "Stop on access protection", and a corresponding one click restart).

Can you do a windows clean - Start/All programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup. Make sure you have the first 5 items ticked, then you have 2 choices.

You can click on OK to do the basic cleanup, or you can also opt to remove all bar the last restore point. If you want to clean out the older restore point information, click on the "More options" tab, and in the System restore panel click the Clean Up button. You will see a dialogue asking "Are you sure you want to delete all but the most recent restore point", click on Yes, then OK. You will get a final "Are you sure you want to perform these actions", click on Yes.