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Thread: Help required

  1. #16
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Whatever happened inside my PC was a near disaster for some things. I shut down last night after cleaning up the HD s and ran regcure which seems excellent and this morning, the whole of my outlook express had been blitzed out of sight! Fortunately the address book is intact but what the
    hell caused that?
    Apart from that, it's running OK, reasonably fast but now and then it stops running a prog. for no reason and I have to ctrl+alt+del to get back and restart.It's still XP Pro but I'm wondering if I need to re-install the OS. I had Vista Home Prem on the D: but when I tried to get into it at boot (dual) it won't work. There are no data files there so I think I'll do a quick format and reinstall the Vista later in the week.
    I'll go into G mail and see if I can resend any of the vital emails.
    docusk

  2. #17
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Still more bad news. Up pops a message saying PC no optimised and I need to have a scan with (I think it was) registry cleanup. Tried that and it came up with Mozilla and it's just frozen!

    In between times I had a glimpse of site attack? attack and once more all froze.
    The heck with that. I think I'll take all my data doc , music and images out into my portable disk and then reload XP pro and Vista one by one.
    Mozilla is just standing still so something mighty peculiar going on.
    Do you agree with my drastic solution? Bear in mind that I must have spent 20 or 30 man hours fiddling plus God knows how much time you guys have given me!
    Never say die.

    docusk

    I need to do some housekeeping as well!!!

  3. #18
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Here I am again. I swore I'd leave it all for the day and I did. Back on the laptop as I was having trouble with the PC as you can see. I came up at abt 11 pm BST and remembered I'd left the PC formatting the Vista drive (a new SATA disk) and expected it to be finished by the time I came up.

    No such luck, it says 'can't complete formatting this drive' or similar. Grrrr.
    Am I ever going to get this damned thing to work.
    If I could find whoever designed the pestilential worm/trojan/virus that damaged my PC I'd find some very convoluted ways of dishing out punishment!!!

    Why won't it let me format the SATA?

    I'll just get on with transferring all the files to the portable disk. and see what tomorrow brings.
    Probably worn out your welcome mat by now I bet.

    docusk

    PS just turned round to work on the PC and loads of bloody popup adverts and odd sites. Some not very nice.

  4. #19
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    How are you getting these infections if you installed Avast and Counterspy? Something just doesn't add up.

    It's hard to keep track of what you are doing when you keep jumping from system to system.

    Are you doing a clean install with format or are you trying to format through windows?

  5. #20
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Sorry if I muddled you. I'll try and\rationalise. Firstly, Vista is a dead duck at present. I'll try and see how to format the disk later Virus rescue Boot Disc on CD ROM.
    Counterspy runs with ease and if I run it twice, it comes up clean, as does RegCure. I can't seem to find ad aware and I'll remove Spy Bot when I can.
    In windows itself I ran cleanup on both system drives and did a defrag on both of them. I haven't emptied the recycle bin yet though there's not much in there. I told you that all my emails - from the last 2 months have disappeared.
    Internet Explorer is coming up very slowly and Mozilla keeps closing (if it comes up at all), I can't get to any site and when it goes anywhere it produces pop-up adverts and one that stops all else asking me if I want to optimise my PC with a prog called CleanupTool.
    I tried formatting through windows. Is that whet went wrong?
    That's state of play at present.
    I'll take your advice about re-installing XP Pro or doing a repair as I don't know what is best. I am at my wits end at present. Not surprised you can't understand what's happening here!
    Yours in hope.

    docusk
    Last edited by docusk; 09-16-2008 at 04:50 AM.

  6. #21
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    You cannot format the drive in Windows. You have to boot from the setup CD.

    You need to make and use the Avira Rescue CD *now*. Forget formatting until you have.

    Keep Spybot. It's not THAT bad. Regcure is a waste of drive space. That you can ditch. Defragging is not going to help either. I've never seen ads that were created by a fragmented hard drive!
    Last edited by BipolarBill; 09-16-2008 at 05:23 AM.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  7. #22
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    I'll agree to disagree about spybot. I think it's rubbish but at least it wouldn't wreck your system. Regcure could have done some serious damage to your registry.

    you have so many problems, that it's probably best to do a clean install. Make sure your antivirus and antispyware are up to date and active. I think Avira is better than Avast, but Counterspy is solid.

  8. #23
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Thanks Bill & Midknyte. Two people who always make sense.

    I'll do just that. I have XP pro in the CD slot and I'll tell you what happens. I'll get rid of Regcure and then get hold of Avira.
    Fingers crossed that I don't foul it up.
    I did the Avira rescue disk on Sunday. Do I need to do it again. Should I do a format on the disk I'm going to put XP on?
    docusk
    Last edited by docusk; 09-16-2008 at 02:10 PM.

  9. #24
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Did the avira all seems OK. Transferring the rest of the files I might need into external disk. Once done I'll install XP.

    One silly thing. The drive containing Vista has disappeared from My Computer. No Idea what's happened but I didn't need it anyway. Maybe it's faulty, it did that a while back and I put it in an ext. case and all was well (before I put Vista on it ) Now it's back internally. Maybe something sinister is going on there.
    I'll be having a day off tomorrow and part of thursday
    docusk

  10. #25
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    Disconnect secondary drives when you reinstall XP. If they are infected, you don't want them contaminating your fresh install.

    If you mean the Vista drive is missing from the "My Computer" screen, then check disk management. If your system can't recognize it at all, check the bios.

  11. #26
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    Here I am, worn out.

    Midknyte, OK to disconnecting all other drives except c: When I do put Vista in, should I disconnect the C: XP Pro then?
    The Vista drive which should be d: isn't shown on boot and is not even mentioned in disk management. Maybe it's faulty, i told you it went AWOL a couple of weeks back but came up when I slipped it into the external case. When I put it back into PC it was fine till yesterday. I have a new Seagate 160 Gb which I'll use anyway. I don't feel I can trust it unless it's Vista that has messed it up. Can it do that? I'm pretty clued up about PC s in general but by no means an expert outside my database work which is a bit long in the tooth now I'm past my 80th b/day!
    I won't be doing anything till Friday not I think, I have my normal chores to do being on my own now.
    Just a simple question. I put an SATA drive in recently. Are these any more reliable?
    I'll let you all know as it goes on. Thanks again.
    docusk

  12. #27
    Senior Member seanieboy77's Avatar
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    You might want to try and install Malwarebytes. That usually finds a great deal of viruses and spyware. You can download the free version from here.
    -BTY
    Dear Diary,
    Jackpot!
    -Quagmire

  13. #28
    Extreme Member! BipolarBill's Avatar
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    SATA drives are no more reliable that IDE drives. but you never know...

    Since that drive has let you down twice, you should consier retiring it.
    MS MCP, MCSE

  14. #29
    Stark Raving MOD Midknyte's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by docusk
    When I do put Vista in, should I disconnect the C: XP Pro then?
    If you want to dual boot, you need to have the first OS drive plugged in.

    SATA drives are mechanical devices and thus prone to the same problems as IDE drives.

  15. #30
    Senior Member docusk's Avatar
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    OK Got that. Thanks. Also thanks ! Have that now in this laptop. Good.
    Yes. I'm not sure how old the drive is Bill but that's what i shall do, send it to that great big MOBO in the sky.
    The PC is still so slow, over a minute to access I E properly. Then maybe 10 or more seconds to quit!
    The XP drive is a seagate 250 Mb by the way.
    Friday we shall take up the cudgels Ta dahhhh!!!!!

    docusk

    (AKA comic cuts -in my long past yourh.)
    Last edited by docusk; 09-17-2008 at 05:41 PM.

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