Sound Like A Virus?

[Elton]

I haven't seen the machine in question yet (picking it up later), but a friend's machine has just gone kaputt.

 

Basically, he can boot his machine up until the stage when he is asked for a log-in password for XP. Then, he gets some error messages about the bios, a dump and not having enough memory (that's as much as I know so far).

 

Any clues yet?

[Colin Brett]

Start it in safe mode.

then reboot.

With luck it will all fire up again.

I got the big blue screen and "dumping memory to disk". I hit the wall socket switch pretty damn quick.

Guess what it wouldn't start up.

Rebooted to safe mode. Then rebooted again and away it went. PHEW!!!!

 

Colin [it worked for me]

[Elton]

I started a safe mode reboot and got line after line of code about it partitioning stuff - is that normal?

 

BTW, this machine is very slow, so I'm going to take it into work where I have more time and space.

[Newt]

Elton - when you get it where you plan to work on it, boot and hit the option to go into the BIOS settings. Once there, look around a little and make sure it sees the essential hardware like memory and drives.

 

If it does, hit whatever key is needed to save the settings and let it exit and do a warm boot (no power off). Into safe mode would be an excellent idea.

 

If that works, reboot again and try normal mode. As Colin discovered, XP will often fix itself with a startup in safe mode.

 

If all the above worked, shut down and power down for about an hour. Remove the power cord from the wall. Then plug in and try to restart. If it goes nuts again, you have a bad CMOS battery most likely.

 

Keep careful track of what it does and any error messages and post back with what you got if it doesn't work properly. Exactly what you got for errors.

 

[ 11. March 2004, 10:07 PM: Message edited by: Newt ]

[Elton]

Cheers, guys.

 

I've left it ready to take into the office (probably tomorrow), where there's more space and, maybe, a mouse that it likes. It is *so* slow, too.

 

I've found out since that the owner *did* click on what was probably a virus - he said he got an email telling hm that some text document was attached.

 

Cheers,

 

Elton

[Jim Roper]

Could be the hard disc is getting full!

Not enough room for virtual memory needs.

 

I'm deleting about 100 junk emails a day, some with attachments. When I check to see what Norton has quarantined, the number of files is the same as the number of messages with attachments, up to about 10 a day.

I got a message from someone saying I had sent them a virus at a time when my machine was switched off, so there are still a few naughty ones out there!

[Elton]

I now know that the machine reboots itself if you try to get into Windows.

 

It is also painfully slow booting up.

 

I will have a look at it tomorrow:(

[Newt]

Sounds sorta like the Blaster Worm. RPC error and a crash.

[Elton]

hat would be the best way to tackle it, if I really can't get into Windows?

[Jim Roper]

Until Newt is back, you could start here http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/cgi-bin/ubb/ul...c;f=19;t=000011

There might be something you could download onto a floppy or cd and then use it on the infected machine.

Perhaps if you put in the windows cd and choose the repair option, you might fix it.