(OT) Dead HDD
 

I'll be a little scarce for a while due to PC trouble. If anyone wants to
contact me before I get it resolved and I don't reply online, feel free to
call. Sherry R. has my number if you don't, and it's on the friesianlover
site as well.

Here are some details of the disaster in case anyone has a suggestion to
help me get back up and running sooner.

Yesterday there was an odd noise coming from my hard drive. At first it
was intermittent, and I wasn't sure it was even coming from the computer.
Then it became constant, and a bit louder. Followed it with my ear and was
led to the front of the PC. The sound was coming from my primary HD, and
the machine didn't want to shut down. I once heard similar sound coming
from a tape player that wouldn't quit trying to advance a tape that had
reached its end.

A local geek told me the sound heralds imminent death of my HD and advised
me to hold off on trying to use it again in case it has enough time left
that he could Ghost it for me. He's not sure that will work, even if the
disk lasts long enough, because it has partitions. I don't know why having
partitions would interfere but I take his word for it and will take him
the disk soon, but I wanted to at least try to copy some data from it in
case it can't be Ghosted, so I borrowed a friend's PC which has been
sitting unused for nearly a year and has loads of unused disk space. And
now, loads of malware as well.

Just before putting her PC in mothballs, there had been a heavy
infestation of spyware that we couldn't uproot, and I had reinstalled
windows for her, and advised her to get the latest Zone Alarm, virus
definitions, spyware tools, etc. She didn't hear that and within a day had
such a mess of garbage running on the machine that it had to be wiped
clean again. This time she waited for HP to send a set of recovery disks
and used them instead of just installing windows xp, and right after doing
that, she didn't shut the machine down quick enough during a thunderstorm
and lost her modem. At which point she got disgusted and gave up.

So, since I knew I was starting with a "naked" setup, the first thing I
did was download Zone Alarm and the trial version of SpySweeper. Her NAV
subscription had of course expired but NAV was running and had email
scanning enabled. While downloading Zone Alarm (via dialup), NAV started
popping up little windows about outgoing email being scanned. But I wasn't
sending email, hadn't even thought of doing so.

Once Zone Alarm was installed and upon restarting there was alert after
alert about all kinds of strange programs wanting to run on startup and
asking for decisions. Before making any, I looked up a few of them on
Google, which led me to this:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...w32.petch.html

After reading that I was kind of afraid to restart the machine!

I installed SpySweeper, updated it and ran a full scan, and it didn't find
any parts of this worm but did find a pile of BHOs, porn dialers and
assorted adware.

All this in less than an hour of being online unprotected, and having
visited only a few (very safe) websites!

I wasn't sure what to do next. Opened Task Manager and killed all those
unwanted processes, then hit Restart and crossed my fingers. Booted into
safe mode and ran SpySweeper again and got rid of a bunch more junk and
restarted normally, but the Task Manager now still indicates malicious
programs are active despite showing as blocked in ZA Programs Control.

I don't want to go any further with trying to clean my friend's PC, or
transfer data to it without cleaning first, unless I know more about
what's going on. If anyone's got good advice, please do tell.

Also, assuming I can proceed with the attempt to transfer some data, I was
hoping someone could post a link to a good beginner's guide to networking
two PCs (which is something I've never done, but I'm sure isn't all that
hard). There are network cards in both machines and I have a cable, but
really haven't got a clue on how to proceed. Mine has Windows 2000 and
hers has XP. Is some software require to be installed on both machines?
And mine requires a password to start up, so how do I get in via my
friend's machine?

Thanks in advance.

Here's a link to a page with all the specs of my PC, in case you need to
know something in order to give advice:

http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=22971

It's really time for a whole new PC, if I can figure a way to swing it
money-wise.

The above message I posted via talkaboutpets, before I got the NG set up on
the loaner machine I am using now. Yesterday, before I knew I'd be able to
keep using this machine for a while, I had also posted a brief note in the
catslaves group and asked if someone would post it here on my behalf. No one
did, and now, no one needs to. Dunno when I'll have time to cancel my
request in catslaves though.

Pat

Top posting. Download Ad-Aware (it's freeware) and use it to to scan the
entire drive. You'd be surprised what is hitting the Windows registry.
Right click to select and delete all the objects found and run the scan a
number of times because it keeps finding stuff.

Make sure you have a good backup of the system, then format the drive and
reload from backup.

Do NOT trust ZoneAlarm to catch this stuff. I ran ZoneAlarm for years but
finally gave in to purchasing the McAfee firewall along with already
purchased A/V software. Surprising the things ZoneAlarm didn't catch. But
even McAfee's firewall doesn't catch spyware and adware. You're going to
need a clean sweep and a reformat to get rid of some of this
self-propagating crap which has invaded your system registry.

I'm doing mine next week when I get my new DVDRW.

Jill

Abelard wrote:
I'll be a little scarce for a while due to PC trouble. If anyone
wants to contact me before I get it resolved and I don't reply
online, feel free to call. Sherry R. has my number if you don't, and
it's on the friesianlover site as well.

Here are some details of the disaster in case anyone has a suggestion
to help me get back up and running sooner.

Yesterday there was an odd noise coming from my hard drive. At first
it was intermittent, and I wasn't sure it was even coming from the
computer. Then it became constant, and a bit louder. Followed it with
my ear and was led to the front of the PC. The sound was coming from
my primary HD, and the machine didn't want to shut down. I once heard
similar sound coming from a tape player that wouldn't quit trying to
advance a tape that had reached its end.

A local geek told me the sound heralds imminent death of my HD and
advised me to hold off on trying to use it again in case it has
enough time left that he could Ghost it for me. He's not sure that
will work, even if the disk lasts long enough, because it has
partitions. I don't know why having partitions would interfere but I
take his word for it and will take him the disk soon, but I wanted to
at least try to copy some data from it in case it can't be Ghosted,
so I borrowed a friend's PC which has been sitting unused for nearly
a year and has loads of unused disk space. And now, loads of malware
as well.

Just before putting her PC in mothballs, there had been a heavy
infestation of spyware that we couldn't uproot, and I had reinstalled
windows for her, and advised her to get the latest Zone Alarm, virus
definitions, spyware tools, etc. She didn't hear that and within a
day had such a mess of garbage running on the machine that it had to
be wiped clean again. This time she waited for HP to send a set of
recovery disks and used them instead of just installing windows xp,
and right after doing that, she didn't shut the machine down quick
enough during a thunderstorm and lost her modem. At which point she
got disgusted and gave up.

So, since I knew I was starting with a "naked" setup, the first thing
I did was download Zone Alarm and the trial version of SpySweeper.
Her NAV subscription had of course expired but NAV was running and
had email scanning enabled. While downloading Zone Alarm (via
dialup), NAV started popping up little windows about outgoing email
being scanned. But I wasn't sending email, hadn't even thought of
doing so.

Once Zone Alarm was installed and upon restarting there was alert
after alert about all kinds of strange programs wanting to run on
startup and asking for decisions. Before making any, I looked up a
few of them on Google, which led me to this:

http://securityresponse.symantec.com...w32.petch.html

After reading that I was kind of afraid to restart the machine!

I installed SpySweeper, updated it and ran a full scan, and it didn't
find any parts of this worm but did find a pile of BHOs, porn dialers
and assorted adware.

All this in less than an hour of being online unprotected, and having
visited only a few (very safe) websites!

I wasn't sure what to do next. Opened Task Manager and killed all
those unwanted processes, then hit Restart and crossed my fingers.
Booted into safe mode and ran SpySweeper again and got rid of a bunch
more junk and restarted normally, but the Task Manager now still
indicates malicious programs are active despite showing as blocked in
ZA Programs Control.

I don't want to go any further with trying to clean my friend's PC, or
transfer data to it without cleaning first, unless I know more about
what's going on. If anyone's got good advice, please do tell.

Also, assuming I can proceed with the attempt to transfer some data,
I was hoping someone could post a link to a good beginner's guide to
networking two PCs (which is something I've never done, but I'm sure
isn't all that hard). There are network cards in both machines and I
have a cable, but really haven't got a clue on how to proceed. Mine
has Windows 2000 and hers has XP. Is some software require to be
installed on both machines? And mine requires a password to start up,
so how do I get in via my friend's machine?

Thanks in advance.

Here's a link to a page with all the specs of my PC, in case you need
to know something in order to give advice:

http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=22971

It's really time for a whole new PC, if I can figure a way to swing it
money-wise.

So sorry to hear about your problems.
Lots of purrs and best wishes,
--
Polonca & Soncek

"Abelard" wrote in message
lkaboutpets.com...
I'll be a little scarce for a while due to PC trouble. If anyone wants to
contact me before I get it resolved and I don't reply online, feel free to
call. Sherry R. has my number if you don't, and it's on the friesianlover
site as well.
snip