Emergency, help again

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:51 pm

In my previous post about the flashing hourglass, the third tech I'd talked to told me to end all startup programs and restart my computer, which I did. About 10 minutes later, (after I'd posted here last), my computer started having error messages, so I went and clicked on enable all for the startup, restarted, but it didn't seem to work. My computer stopped recognizing a lot things on my computer, like the printer, the scanner, my Norton Anti-Virus, and so on. I contacted by email a tech today, and he gave me directions on doing an emergency repair of WindowsXP. I replied asking if I needed to back up anything before I did this, but after waiting for 4 hours now, I haven't received a reply. Do I need to back up anything before I try this? Also, regarding my computer being taken over, I ran a scan for trojans, and it found a file in WINNT/msagent/chars/crdns/exe. I went to that location, checked all the files in there, and all had been created at the same date by Microsoft except the chars file, which had been created day before yesterday. I tried to delete it, but it said it was in use, so I unplugged my intenet connection, and then was able to delete it. When I turned my computer back on this morning, there was a message that popped up saying it couldn't find the file I was looking for, named chars, and told me to check that I'd typed the search line properly. I hadn't asked the computer to find that file, so it made me think that somehow, when my computer was started, someone had made it so the chars file was available right away. Does this make sence?

Edited to add: Since I deleted that file, I don't have the flashing hourglass cursor anymore, and though my computers messed up, everything is running fast as always, not laggy like before.

SirReal · Post by **SirReal** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 4:12 pm

Sounds like you nuked the zombie program / webdialler, whichever it was.
It happened once, it's likely to happen again unless you take action.
Get an active firewall (ZoneAlarm), make sure your antivirus is up to date, and run Search & Destroy regularly.

Edited to add: Oh, and to fix your computer -- backup your data and do a clean install + firewall + antivirus. It's usually the easiest way to get out of the phone-tech-induces mess.

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 4:28 pm

Thanks SirReal, but I'm ashamed to say I've never done a reformat, and don't have any idea of how to do it. Actually, that's not entirely true. With my very first computer, there was something going wrong with it, and a tech told me to reformat, gave me instruction, and my entire hard drive was nuked..

. I don't know if the hard drive was the problem in the first place, or if it happened because I was trying to reformat, but either way, I've been to nervous to try it again. I did get a new hard drive out of that though. When this computer is fixed, and my Norton is running again, you can be sure I'll have zonealarm on here. I already have Ad-Aware and Spybot. I sure don't know how anyone got on my computer though.

Zekester · Post by **Zekester** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 5:03 pm

Does this mean that you are going to do a reformat now, and need help with the procedure?

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 5:30 pm

Sorry, since my computer is borked, and doesn't recognize my printer, even though I tried to re-install it, I have to copy by hand the instructions Gateway techs are sending me, and it's taking forever it seems. No, they want me to try restoring my WinXP Pro from the CD's that came with my computer. If that doesn't fix my computer, they'll have a tech come here to fix it, or have me ship it to them to fix.

Edit to add: the funny thing is that my computer is running beautifully, except for the fact the it won't reconize a lot of programs, and won't let me re-install them either.

Meghan · Post by **Meghan** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 9:16 pm

It won't let you uninstall them either? What happens if you go back in and check those boxes in msconfig?

One thing - if you see something you don't recognize in the startup list, jot down the name and google it. You can often find info on the start up list that way.

I'd go through one at a time reenabling things (once I figured out if I wanted it or not) and see if that helps.

Or you cold just wait for the tech guy to show. Hey ... maybe he'll be cute!

If you do decide to reformat, it's not hard at all as long as you have the actual windows disk. It is time consuming though. Don't plan on doing anything else that day. And you do need to have everything backed up and all your drivers assembled before you start. Last time I did it I just looked up the guide at dell's site, iirc.

good luck!

SirReal · Post by **SirReal** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 4:30 am

Formatting is the same as reformatting, is the same as clearing the hard disk. Wiping it clean, totally.

Using the WinXP restore disk might also wipe the hard disk clean in the process; I'm not sure but it's a good bet. Make a backup before doing it.

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 3:51 pm

I believe Gateway is finally going to send me a service number to send my computer in for repair. They'll probably do a clean install, so I know I need to backup all the programs I want to keep. Seems silly, but the one program I'm worried about is my Steam account, and my store bought copy of HL2. Should I back that up, or will I just be able to re-install with my DVD copy of it, and use my username/password to get it to work again? I tried all of their fixes, but it's hard when you keep getting emails from 15 different people telling you 15 different ways to do one simple thing. Not to mention the two or three emails I got that had nothing to do with my questions, and the ones trying to tell me how to repair Windows 2000 when I have WindowsXP Pro. Thanks to everyone for their help.

disarm · Post by **disarm** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 4:02 pm

snoleopard wrote:the one program I'm worried about is my Steam account, and my store bought copy of HL2. Should I back that up, or will I just be able to re-install with my DVD copy of it, and use my username/password to get it to work again?

you shouldn't need to back anything up for Steam/HL2. once you get the system back, you should be able to reinstall from the DVD, enter the Steam login info that you already have, give them your CD-key again, and start playing. you'll have to wait for that small download to unlock the game again, but that shouldn't take more than a few minutes. good luck getting things running again soon!

snoleopard · Post by **snoleopard** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 5:13 pm

Thanks. I have everything I want backed up, and am going to pack it up tomorrow and send it in. One last odd note, when I just re-started my computer, before any of the screens came up, there was a flash for about 3 seconds with the message 'Invalid Scan' on the screen. Strange.