Virus , bad hard drive or both [Archive]

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matt526

02-13-2009, 02:33 PM

Virus, bad hard drive or both
I am sure I have a virus on my computer all my searches with Google, yahoo and Microsoft live
Give the correct search results but when I click on the link I am taken to the wrong websites
mostly other spam sites. I ran AVG pro with no results.
I even tried formatting the hard drive and installing a clean copy of XP. The XP setup runs fine until I get to the part where I press F8. It than takes me to the screen with the list of hard drives that I can install XP on. I only have 1 hard drive in the computer and the XP setup tells me that it “cannot access the drive” So I can’t even format the drive and install XP.
I did a disk error-check in windows and it found nothing.
Any advice would be great, Thanks!

clocker

02-13-2009, 03:41 PM

Google "kill mbr" and get a DOS app that will erase the master boot record on the drive.

Format and try the install again.

matt526

02-13-2009, 03:45 PM

Thanks
Any Suggestions for a DOS app

Detale

02-13-2009, 03:50 PM

If you can "obtain" a Hiren boot disk there are a few on it ;)

clocker

02-13-2009, 03:53 PM

I use a "tech boot" disk that one of my co-workers used to make for us.

A quick google search pops up something called "Active Kill Disk" that looks like it should work.

matt526

02-13-2009, 03:53 PM

Thanks

clocker

02-13-2009, 04:00 PM

Good luck.

Detale

02-13-2009, 04:19 PM

Let us know what happens

matt526

02-13-2009, 06:46 PM

I will, looks like it could be a long night

100%

02-13-2009, 07:11 PM

never mind, seems like it undercontrol

matt526

02-13-2009, 09:34 PM

I do have one last question,
If I were to take out the hard drive an hook it up as an external drive to another computer and format it from there. Would that be taking a risk on infecting the other computer?

clocker

02-13-2009, 09:51 PM

Should be OK.

N2bnfunn

02-13-2009, 09:58 PM

NTFS does not use MBR (master boot record)

clocker

02-13-2009, 10:42 PM

Oh, really?

peat moss

02-13-2009, 10:46 PM

NTFS does not use MBR (master boot record)

Then why do people use a Win98 boot disk to fixmbr on a NTFS system ?

Still one of my fav tools when I have HDD troubles .

Boot the PC with a Win98 boot disk (http://www.bootdisk.com/),
then run the command fdisk /mbr
This works on FAT and on NTFS partitions.

tesco

02-13-2009, 11:00 PM

NTFS does not use MBR (master boot record)
All (AFAIK) PC hard drives use the MBR.
MBR and NTFS have nothing to do with eachother.:blink:

clocker

02-13-2009, 11:11 PM

Says you.

tesco

02-13-2009, 11:39 PM

Says you.
You're really useless lately you know that? :lol:

clocker

02-14-2009, 04:01 AM

Waachoo mean "lately", homie?

tesco

02-14-2009, 07:19 PM

You were useful in 2004. :unsure:

clocker

02-14-2009, 07:53 PM

Even that is generous, methinks.

100%

02-14-2009, 08:03 PM

To all you who prefer to format and reinstall whenever you face a problem.

You learn nothing by doing so.

peat moss

02-14-2009, 09:37 PM

To all you who prefer to format and reinstall whenever you face a problem.

You learn nothing by doing so.

Sometimes a lot quicker tho , especially if virus troubles .

lynx

02-14-2009, 10:02 PM

You were useful in 2004. :unsure:
I'm not sure he knows what year it is any more, now that you've dropped it from your name.

To all you who prefer to format and reinstall whenever you face a problem.

You learn nothing by doing so.

Sometimes a lot quicker tho , especially if virus troubles .
Just put the drive in an external case, connect the drive to a non-infected system (make sure that autorun is turned off) and scan for viruses, including boot sectors.

That's got to be quicker that reinstalling windoze.

clocker

02-15-2009, 12:33 AM

I'm not sure he knows what year it is any more, now that you've dropped it from your name.

That was incredibly handy.
Would you mind being lynx2009 for a while?

matt526

02-15-2009, 02:16 AM

I did find a virus and removed it and everything worked fine
but I figured it was about time to reinstall windows anyway, been over a year.
I have another problem that I have not seen before at leasst not in a long time. I have two 500GB hard drives in the computer. when I press f8 in the windows setup process it says that "Setup did not find any Hard Disk"
the BIOS sees them just find, whats up!!

peat moss

02-15-2009, 02:35 AM

Why would you press f8 in setup ? Your booting from CD to reinstall right ?

matt526

02-15-2009, 03:06 AM

right, boot from XP CD it loads the stuff from the CD you press Enter to install windows then F8 to go to the list of Hard Drives that you can potentially install Windows.
Basically Windows Setup is not seeing either one of the hard drives in my computer

peat moss

02-15-2009, 03:34 AM

Sorry I had f8 safemode on the brain , unplug the slave hdd and then try .

SonsOfLiberty

02-15-2009, 06:18 AM

I guess you could always format before hand.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Or even for that matter use an off line/boot scanner.

http://www.lockergnome.com/windows/2006/07/25/how-do-i-run-an-anti-virus-scan-if-i-cant-boot/

But having a fresh image of Windows with all you favorite apps installed and only takes a few minutes to restore is priceless :)

http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-guides-and-tutorials-65/t-hot-image-your-pcs-hard-drive-driveimage-xml-335831

lynx

02-15-2009, 12:19 PM

One thing no-one seems to have thought to ask.

What motherboard do you have and what type of drive?

I'm thinking that if you've got the motherboard set up for RAID mode, or it is a SATA drive and the motherboard doesn't present it as IDE compatible then you need to press F6 while setup is loading and provide the drivers before you can install windows.

If you haven't got the drivers you should be able to download them from the motherboard maker's site.

matt526

02-18-2009, 02:11 PM