TSGL: XP pro - Now HDD continued problems

[Tilman Brandl]

Hi Russ,

I'm still checking for viruses - it must be something that my AVG didn't 
find in the past since it did it's checks nearly every day since day 1. Just 
checked again and see that it found a Java/ByteVerify virus - yesterday the 
first time. I'll try to get rid of this, but don't believe it's the *real* 
culprit since I've had problems before this.

Other progs I ran repeatedly like adaware, Spybot S&D, or the MS-Malicious 
software removal tool (always on!) have never found anything that I'm aware 
of. In a way I would be glad if I could find something nasty, it would give 
me an explanation.

<the problem may be caused by something on a secondary drive,>
Let me see if I understand this correctly - my programs all reside on the HD 
0 - D: partition, and when I run any of those, this could activate trojans, 
worms, etc. Then there are old backups of stuff on HD 1 part F: - as I 
understand it, there wouldn't be a chance to trigger a virus from there w/o 
*running* any programs sitting there, right?

Meanwhile though it appears as if there were more problems accumulating  - 
like win system programs that can't be found, Bitdefender not installing, 
Maxthon crashing twice on start, and such. Maybe my system is already 
compromised and/or corrupted beyond repair? Not too long ago I've btw done 
an XP repair installation from CD (sfc didn't work) which apparently didn't 
help.

<Did your fresh install include a complete format of all hard drives in your 
computer?>
As far as I remember, only the new HD got formatted then, not the old one 
(not sure though)

<And if you don't trust your software for any reason, don't install it 
without testing it >
That's a good idea, may be too late for me. 99.9% of what I've ever 
installed were programs recommended by trustworthy people or sites on the 
web, like a bunch of graphics + photographic software I've tested recently 
(can't be sure of the rest, I guess). By trustworthy I mean places like 
TSGL, Windows secrets or Gizmo Richard's site.

<I realize that what I have suggested is drastic>
Well, yes and no, it may be less drastic than all the hassle I'm having for 
such a long time now. The reason why I haven't been more active in finding 
solutions is that I still COULD do most of my work w/o too many problems: 
Email, searching the web, using office programs etc.

One idea I'm also pondering is a restore back to a point about 3 weeks ago. 
But then - thinking back doesn't convince me that there were no problems 
back then (they were less drastic, I believe).

Thanks for your tips!
Tilman

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Russell W. Coover
  To: 'Tech Support Guy Mailing List'
  Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 5:54 AM
  Subject: Re: TSGL: XP pro - Now HDD continued problems


  Tilman,

  Of course I am not certain, but it appears that you have at least one, and
  possibly numerous viruses and/or Trojans. I can't imagine a hardware 
failure
  that could or would cause the problems you are having.

  Did your fresh install include a complete format of all hard drives in 
your
  computer? Since the problem may be caused by something on a secondary 
drive,
  you may want to remove all drives except for your boot drive and any extra
  partitions on your boot drive and reinstall Windows on a freshly formatted
  drive. Run that for a couple of days before you place any other hard 
drives
  back in your computer to see if the problem continues without them.

  And if you don't trust your software for any reason, don't install it
  without testing it with an updated Anti-Virus scan. You might want to test
  it online with something like "Housecall" from TrendMicro ...

  http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

  I realize that what I have suggested is drastic, but it appears you have a
  drastic problem. I think you need a drastic solution. I hope I am wrong.

  Russ Coover



  -----Original Message-----
  From: list-bounces at tsgserver.com [mailto:list-bounces at tsgserver.com] On
  Behalf Of Tilman Brandl
  Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2008 7:13 PM
  To: Tech Support Guy Mailing List
  Subject: TSGL: XP pro - Now HDD continued problems

  Hi,

  I'm not getting happy with my new PC - bought in Nov 07, applied a fresh
  install of XP prp sp2 - since then there's trouble.

  ***** Question: CAN any kind of 'standard' software (if there is such 
thing)

  damage my machine's HDDs ?


  That's all I want to know just now, the rest is for the curious of you, 
and
  not the faint at heart ;-)
  ----------------------------------------------------------------
  I'm asking the above, because I'm running into a new (or old) problem 
nearly

  each day.

  - XP Firewall is getting set to OFF after reboot
  - can't install different programs - last one was BitDefender
  - machine reboots a few times each day, asks to run chkdsk afterwards and
  sometimes finds/repairs defective entries + indices on system + program
  partitions
  - errors show up in taskbar: "...file xxxxxx corrupt: Run chkdsk to repair
  .... " saw it a few times, sometimes it stopped an installation. This is 
the

  first time I've EVER seen those

  What I've done:
  * Ran chkdsk on all drives,
  * Sofar I've been running AVG free with updated definitions nearly each 
day,

  rarely was there anything worth mentioning, and what was found were mostly
  old finactive files somewhere stored away in a .zip or such.

  A while ago I had lots of reboots, which stopped after I tweaked a
  timings-setting in Bios (w/o really knowing WHAT to tweak)

  In the works:
  Currently I'm running a thorough check with adaware - a first smart scan
  only found 2 old favorites, marked as malware (removed it) and the usual
  collection of tracking cookies (left them)

  Will do more checks, if I can install another antivirus program.

  I really wónder if this all is normal windows trouble, a 3rd-party 
software
  thing (any drivers...) or actually hardware related, like my old Sata-HDD
  dying (this one isn't old, just 1/2 year at max). The second Sata-HDD is
  brand new
  <sigh>

  Tilman