Computer issues

[Brian Robison]

That's right! I know how smart you folks are so I know one of you knows whats up with my home computer.
Looks like it had / has a virus, worm, trojan, whatever.
The screen went green yesterday. Now, this is SWMBO's computer so I have only a little knowledge of it.
After running anti virus stuff she re booted. Now the thing starts up, goes to the admin. page. We click one the thingy for starting up (administrator) and it acts like it wants to start but then changes to saving settings like it does when you shut down the computer.:confused:

[John Noell]

There are many possibilities but this is commonly seen when a virus is removed but a registry key referring to it (one that affects the login) is not fixed. It can be a bit tricky to fix at this point.

[Dave Johnson29]

We click one the thingy for starting up (administrator) and it acts like it wants to start but then changes to saving settings like it does when you shut down the computer.:confused:

Try starting it in Safe Mode and report back.

Check here for details...
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/chsafe.htm

[Todd Suire]

If you can't boot into Safe Mode, you may have to boot from a bootable CD or USB drive. Either of those containing anti-virus software and/or a registry cleaner is probably your best bet to get things working again.

Otherwise, you may have to find the manufacturer's recovery discs and start over from scratch....but that's a last resort.

Good Luck. I just went through something similar with my laptop.

[Norberto Coutinho]

That's right! I know how smart you folks are so I know one of you knows whats up with my home computer.
Looks like it had / has a virus, worm, trojan, whatever.
The screen went green yesterday. Now, this is SWMBO's computer so I have only a little knowledge of it.
After running anti virus stuff she re booted. Now the thing starts up, goes to the admin. page. We click one the thingy for starting up (administrator) and it acts like it wants to start but then changes to saving settings like it does when you shut down the computer.:confused:
.
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

[Brian Robison]

I gave up and took it to a professional.

[John Noell]

Not a bad idea here. If you are comfortable booting from something like Bart's PE CD and using a registry editor it is pretty simple to fix. It does NOT require formatting the drive and starting over. This is a 15 minute job if you know what you are doing. However, it is pretty easy to screw thinsg up if you do not know exactly what you are doing. Once the machine cannot boot on its own (and from what you described, even booting into safe mode is highly unlikely to be an option) it makes life (and fixing the computer) a bit more complicated.

And if it does still boot, MalwareBytes is an excellent tool!

[Brian Robison]

Update,
I formatted and installed XP on a second drive (made it the main drive) now I'm stuck with all the programs and drivers on the corrupted drive. We are pretty sure we have removed all viruses but the registry it messed up on the corrupted drive. We are about to give up and get a new computer and see if some one can move everything over to the new one. Also having problems retreaving e mails and e mail addresses. They were on an old version of netscape.

[Dan Hintz]

I doubt many (any?) would take the time to transfer a program over by moving registry keys... it's heavily error prone, and it's a real fox hunt. I may do it for a single program if I'm in a bind, but I would never attempt to do multiple programs that way. Is there any reason you cannot install the programs from their original disks?

[George Brown]

Update,
I formatted and installed XP on a second drive (made it the main drive) now I'm stuck with all the programs and drivers on the corrupted drive. We are pretty sure we have removed all viruses but the registry it messed up on the corrupted drive. We are about to give up and get a new computer and see if some one can move everything over to the new one. Also having problems retreaving e mails and e mail addresses. They were on an old version of netscape.


DO NOT get a new computer. There is nothing wrong with the current one if it is only a virus. It can happen and it does. After you reinstall xp, just reinstall the programs, no big deal. If you need specifics, pm me.

[Russ Shoe]

Brian,
George is right, your pc is fine with the new hardrive, as far as your stuff on the messed up drive, there are ways of getting the data off, programs are better off installed fresh on the new, and then get the data that you need off the old drive.

I have a device that can hook up to any kind of hardrive, IDE,EIDE,SATA, etc, even with different voltage as per the drive, it makes it a usb drive, and you can look at it just like a flashdrive and retrieve some data. You can get them online, or most computer guys have something like this. I can find the place where I got it if you need it.

(or.....always fun to buy a new pc, probally Windows 7, make sure what your running works with it.)

russ


Update,
I formatted and installed XP on a second drive (made it the main drive) now I'm stuck with all the programs and drivers on the corrupted drive. We are pretty sure we have removed all viruses but the registry it messed up on the corrupted drive. We are about to give up and get a new computer and see if some one can move everything over to the new one. Also having problems retreaving e mails and e mail addresses. They were on an old version of netscape.

[donald bugansky]

You could just save yourself the frustration and just buy a Mac???

Unless there are "special" applications you use, the Mac will come with apps to cover just about everything you need to do.

Seriously, a bad drive doesn't mean the end of the world. With the price of drives today (500G) for $99, snap in a new one and just re-install that apps. Per Dan's comment, moving apps over will generally miss a dll file of some sort.

Re-installing also mitigates any imbedded "problem" files that could get moved to the new drive by accident.

[Dennis McGarry]

Do not get a MAC....

Wow sounds kind of harsh huh? Now you know how it feels when every mac user wants to tell a pc user anytime there is error, get a mac... <soap box off>

Now if you installed everything on the new harddrive, and left all the programs on the old one, no biggy.

reinstall the programs on the new one, then as for email and contacts, you say netscape? Now I have to ask, how old is the pc you are using?

In any event you will have an import option in options for the browser, you shoudl be able to tell the new browser (firefox) to import from the old installation, you may have to browse for the files on the old harddrive, they will be under program files/netscape

Let me know if you need any more help

[donald bugansky]

Brian,

If you need help, let me know and I'll Bomgar in to assist (if you so desire).

As far as getting a new computer, don't let Dennis dissuade you from your computer options as some systems run limited OS's while others will run EVERY OS not to mention the whole virus issue or lack thereof. <soap box off>

As far as the special device Russ mentions, I believe he is referring to a universal drive adapter (newertechnology) that allows you to connect disparate devices. It's a great tool and referred to as "The Swiss Army Knife of Disk Connectivity". You can use it if you don't want to leave the old drive in the machine as a slave. Just pull it, connect it to the tool and browse for files.

Lastly, a number of variables need to be considered whether it's better to fix/upgrade versus buying a new machine. With prices dropping every day, it would be difficult to justify adding >$150 to a machine older than 24 months old as data density doubles every 18 months (Moore's Law). On the other hand, if it's a single function (just used for laser engraving for example) application machine, and you can keep it running with piece parts, then maybe you could get a few more years out of it.

[Brian Robison]

It's an old machine, probably 6 years old. (2) 40 gig hard drives, 1.5 gigs of ram, pentium 4 processor.
Both hard drives are ok, the virus just seemed to knock out the XP registry files on the main drive. Little by little I'm getting things to work again. The big thing is the saved e mails and e mail addresses. (One reason I went to gmail). Convincing SWMBO to use gmail is a different story.

[Prashun Patel]

Brian-

I'm the IT manager (one of a few hats) at my company. In my experience, it's not worth it to fix a computer > 4 yrs old. Just get a new one. Even the new Netbooks - which cost between $300-$400 have more oomph than your current machine. That's not to suggest you buy one of those, but to illustrate how far stuff moves.

Buy a new machine, donate your existing one, and be done with it.

[donald bugansky]

Time to move to Core 2 Duo chipset not to mention bigger drives. I can't remember the last time I even saw a 40 GB drive. http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/smilies/eek.gif

What does impress me is that you had 1.5 G of RAM in a machine that is 6 years old. Don't usually see that combination, especially with a unit that has 40 GB drives.

Also, hate to beat a dead horse/pour salt in the wound but great time to introduce a "disaster recovery" methodology to alleviate complications in the future.

[Brian Robison]

I agree, I tried to get SWMBO to move info on the empty hard drive and back up. She doesn't like me on her computer so that why we got what we got. The hard drive with the OS on it only had 2 free gigs left, not enough to run it. The computer came with 256 ram and I upgraded it here and there. That's why it had such an unusual amount of ram.
I try to back up my auto cad and corel files often and my e mail is web based. I need to look at Carbonite or something similar.

[Prashun Patel]

IMHO, too much effort is spent on disaster recovery programs trying to get the registry and all yr software back up. For me, the only stuff that's disastrous to lose is the data.

To that end, I suggest you get an external Harddrive. If you have a router, get one that can sit on the network via ethernet cable. If not, get a USB drive.

Keep ALL of your data files in one directory like c:\files so you don't have to think about where all yr data is.

Most NAS's and ext hd's come with software that'll pull the data from yr hd every nite.

External storage dev's are so big and cheap - like in the 500GB + range, you'll have enough to cover all of yr home pc's hd's. So, look for backup software that doesn't compress yr data - just copies it in it's regular form. This makes retrieving it easier.

Keep it simple, and you'll be more inclined to maintain it. In my experience, every time I've made a complicated backup solution, it fails.

[donald bugansky]

To everyone's point, the easier the back-up is the more likely you will do it.

To Shawn's point, try to keep the important data (anything that can't be replaced or replicated) in a common place. Then just get a NAS device, a simple $20 software app that performs the back-up automatically once a day, once a week - whatever makes sense.

Just check the data periodically to ensure the back-ups are being done properly and you'll save yourself countless hours next time you have an issue.

[Roy Nicholson]

You could try a repair install...

Not the first option but the second option at repairing a previous installation.

PM me if you still need to do ti and want a hand.

Regards


Roy N.

[Curt Harms]

I keep all my data in a separate partition, or better yet separate drive. That way the backups are quite manageable. I have my applications set to use the separate partition/drive as the default storage location so that when I hit "save" it goes to the separate device. On my machine at least, data is a small percentage of the total disk usage. Operating systems & applications are most of it and can be recreated without too much trouble. Once data is gone it's gone, unless you have a recent backup.

[John Noell]

Brian, if I were working onyour computer the first thing I would do is look to see if there were any restore points. On a non-booting drive this means booting with the OS CD, going into the recovery console, and navigating to the appropriate directory. The critical registry hive files can be hand copied to the main Windows directory using DOS. I've save many "dead" computers with such techniques. IF you can find someone who has actual experience doing this, AND IF there are restore points, you might get just about everything back.