I got a laptop from a friend to fix it. She said that's it's freezing all the time, and that you basically cannot do anything with it anymore.

So I was firing it up, and indeed, after 1-5 minutes, it beeps once, and then everything is locked, mouse does not move, keys won't react, you must switch it off by holding down the power button.

I only saw that in the startup of the system configuration is a massive list. I already tried to stop several several services or programs that launch with Windows start, but at some point, it locks itself again, and I have to reboot.

I'm also not able to run anti virus or anti malware software. So I booted it in safe mode, but not all of the services or programs are present, and it doesn't let me install stuff, as I'm not logged in as administrator.

So I booted with the Hiren's CD in mini XP mode and let now run Spybot, which was the only utility I could run, as others refuse by telling me that you cannot run them in mini XP mode.

Spybot found 227 entries and fixed them, didn't restart the PC yet in normal mode to see if it changes anything.

Is there a way I could try to keep the system alive to optimize it, and remove the garbage on it?

To be honest, it's an older Dell Inspiron, and if it would be mine, I would recover music, photos and stuff, and then do a fresh install.
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