XPhome can't fully boot, suspect virus

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 7:15pm

XPhome can't fully boot, suspect virus

I am trying to un-fritz my daughters computer - it won't boot and chkdsk hits 50% and says there are unrecoverable errors. She has Norton AV 2002 installed, and I would like to scan for viruses but can't since I can't boot.

Does anyone know of a virus scanner I could use in this situation? I tried the fixmbr and fixboot since PQ Magic 8 was telling me that the problem might be there. I may also just blowout the C: partition and reinstall.

The hard drive is going to be zeroed-out and a fresh install done, but I would like to save her data. I configured her 80GB drive as C: = 20GB and D: = 60GB to make life simple in this sort of situation, but can't access either partition. All her parts were brand new at Christmas and I don't suspect hardware failure (I'm going to run the HD fitness test anyway).

At any rate, for further reference is there a way to run a virus scan (any brand) on a non-booting NTFS volume?

Thanks,

Prof

__________________ ---Prof

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 7:29pm

Good idea, but

PQM 8 is telling me that there are CRC errors galore when I check the drives.

Sorry I didn't mention that before.

Prof

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shwaip

elaborate bot

5,729 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 7:53pm

If you just want to get the data from the hd, you could try placing it in your pc, and copying the data from the broken drive to yours. (That is, if it works).

Oh, and tell your daughter to stop downloading porn :P

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Necropolis

Back from the wilderness

1,762 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 7:54pm

Have you tried to do a repair install with your XP disk, see if that fixes the problem's.

If not then your looking at a format and re-install.

As for her data, have you tried putting the drive into another machine and pulling the data off that way?

__________________ Im one of the new breed of geek. The beer swilling, guinness drinking, women oggling, tech loving, football watching, tattoo'd Uber Geek.

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Necropolis

Back from the wilderness

1,762 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 8:07pm

Just thought of another one, bare with me. Try another power connector in the Hard Drive. I had something similar a while ago with a machine I built.

It was having problems reading the drive, erroring all the time, turned out that the power connector was damaged slightly, swaped it with a different one, worked fine.

Tried putting the old one back, started to error again. Now I aint saying this will be it, because I have only seen it once on all the machines I have built, but give it a go.

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 8:10pm

Well...

I ran the Maxtor diagnostic and got an S57 code. They aren't specific about it, but tell me that the drive is bad and must be replaced.

She has a burner and has most of her stuff backed up, but like most of us hasn't backed up anything from the past couple of weeks. After calling her, she has assured me that there is nothing on there that she will miss too much, so looks like it's RMA city for me.

Just for kicks, I'm running the Maxtor low-level format to see if that makes a difference when I re-run the fitness diagnostic. I usually use the old DOS Diskedit program and fill the first few hundred sectors with zeroes, effectively destroying any boot sector and partition info on the drive. Anyone have any comments on either method?

Prof

PS: A Big Hearty Thanks to all who responded - it is quite impressive that S-M's Emergency Help Forum generated such a quick response from so many knowledgeable people. This is already the best daggone tech site on the internet and is getting better every day!

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 8:16pm

Gonna Try...

jdii1215 said
I think you might have a bad HD and\or cable. NOT just viruses.

Normally viruses do not cause PM to say there are CRC errors. Unless the floppies used are not write protected and your PM is virused. THEN, PM would\could do VERY strange things. Have you tried running PM from a CD boot???

I should have mentioned you specifically as having hit the nail right on the head. You did remind me of something which I should have thought of on my own - the CABLE.

I'm taking a new one out of the plastic wrapper and going to try it as soon as the LLF is complete.

Prof
(Prematurely Senile)

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shwaip

elaborate bot

5,729 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 8:53pm

btw, maxtor RMA is very good. I had to rma one recently. I sent mine in, and i had a new drive back within 3 days of them getting it.

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Clutch

I'm the man in the box

4,805 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 10:14pm

You will be amazed at the things a bad cable will do. I have helped lots of people where replacing the cable made the difference, heck I just had to replace the cable in my main rig because it was a cheap rounded one.

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Necropolis

Back from the wilderness

1,762 Posts

10 Jun 2003, 10:57pm

Re: Well...

profdlp said

PS: A Big Hearty Thanks to all who responded - it is quite impressive that S-M's Emergency Help Forum generated such a quick response from so many knowledgeable people. This is already the best daggone tech site on the internet and is getting better every day!

I am just glad we can help. Were always here when you need us

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mmonnin

Veteran Icrontian

10,545 Posts

11 Jun 2003, 12:44am

I know someone whose computer would not boot because it had a bad cable.

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

11 Jun 2003, 2:36am

All Good Ideas...

...but no improvement. The drive is headed back to Maxtor. shwaip - I, too, have heard good things about their RMA policy. I hope I can join the rest of you in singing their praises.

I think this is the first Maxtor out of six or seven I've owned to bite the big one on me.

I've been needing another hard drive anyway for a future project, so I went shopping around this afternoon to see what I could come up with, figuring I could stick another drive in her computer, then PQMagic it over when I get the RMA (I'm driving the 210 mile round-trip Thursday, anyway). Staples had ATA-133 30GB drives for $60 minus a $30 mail-in rebate. That amounts to $30 for 30GB, which will eventually end up in one of my backup computers - the size is a good one for the regular backups of my docs. For a buck a Gig I guess I can't go wrong.

Thanks again for all of your help.

Prof

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TheBaron

Veteran Icrontian

2,777 Posts

11 Jun 2003, 4:54pm

yeah but fry's has a 200 gig western digital special edition for $130 ($250-$120 mfr mail in). thats $.65 per gig. i bought 2 :-)

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TheBaron

Veteran Icrontian

2,777 Posts

11 Jun 2003, 4:54pm

of course maybe thats just in my area

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

11 Jun 2003, 4:59pm

TheBaron said
yeah but fry's has a 200 gig western digital special edition for $130 ($250-$120 mfr mail in). thats $.65 per gig. i bought 2 :-)

TheBaron said
of course maybe thats just in my area

Yeah, we don't have Fry's around here (central VA). I have heard good things about them, though.

$.65 per gig - wow! I remember shelling out about $200 for a 3.2GB drive five or six years ago.

Prof

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Clutch

I'm the man in the box

4,805 Posts

11 Jun 2003, 5:31pm

damn, that is a good deal. Too bad we don't have a fry's around here, I know a while back they had some good bundle deals with the K7S5A's and the 1700+'s I think, heck we don't even have a staples around here.

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profdlp

Off To The Gym

21,407 Posts

12 Jun 2003, 3:29am

Update

Slapped the 30GB Maxtor in there yesterday, reinstalled XPhome. Everything else is running perfectly.

The old drive should be replaced soon, PQMagic will do its thing, and all should be OK at that point. While shopping around for the temporary replacement HD I found a nice case w/ a window, side fan hole, a 350W PS, and two nifty neon tubes running up either side of the front of the case. To top it off I found some custom fan grills - I picked one that looks like a dragon.

My daughter is going to clean up bigtime as a result of this glitch.

Prof

Thanks again for all the help!

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Slick

OMG don't touch the chair

384 Posts

12 Jun 2003, 4:07am

mmonnin said
I know someone whose computer would not boot because it had a bad cable.

That was me. I don't think the IDE was fully compatible with the motherboard I had. One IDE came with the harddrive and I got the three of them confused. Somehow, one that didn't work go in there.

__________________ Taking over the world, one computer at a time. ~Slick

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XPhome can't fully boot, suspect virus

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