Yes, I should have backed everything up. I've never had a problem fixing a virus or avoiding malware, etc... in may YEARS of downloading torrents and surfing porn. Figured I was safe.
Yesterday, AVG free says an update is available. I ran it, and POOF. Nonstop resident shield warnings that the following files are infected with trojans
b.dll (no clue what this one is)
explorer.exe
winlogon.exe
As you all know, the two latter ones I couldn't do a thing about with AVG, since they are key files. The first one I kept deleting/quarantining, and it kept coming back. The resident shield popups were about every 10 seconds. So I ran Malwarebytes, and it said to restart.
POOF.
Can't start up the computer. No safe mode, no nothing. So not only do I have some shitty virus, now I actually deleted the sytem 32 folder for real, or at least two crucial startup files.
I'm running chkdsk right now off my installation disk. I've also got my trusty boot disk I've yet to use. (Hirens boot). I'm just not good at this stuff, so it's gonna take a long time to fix, and I'm worried I'll fuck it up worse in the meantime.
you deleted system32 lol. explorer.exe is windows explorer. if its a virus chkdsk isn't going to really do anything. If you can get in safe mode, put rkill.exe and malware bytes in the start up folder so it starts before the virus..sometimes that works but it sounds like there might be no hoap for you but for starting over at this point.
1) gettinI need a big enough removable drive. a) I have 1000+ albums alone on there. B) My music (recording) projects folder is some many gigs large. And the other big shitty part is I'd have to reinstall hours and hours and hours and hours of sample libraries over again. Superior 2.0 alone took me about THREE DAYS to install. c) some of my shit is so scattered and all over the place, like settings, preset files, etc...
2) Hirens: I'm using it, but I don't know what I'm doing. I ran chkdsk, and got errors. Running chkdsk /r, and about 50% through. On hirens, EVERY SINGLE registry program errored and told me it couldn't find my registry. My guess is that this is bad.
3) MARK: Last night, wanted to scream and kill people. Spent about 8 hours on it and passed out. Today, I systematically got up, got baked, started working on it and installed steam on my laptop so I can play supreme commander 2 while I wait on all these fucking scans and shit. Perfect game to kill hours at a time.
4) Randy - cannot get into safe mode. I get a blue screen there as well. I can boot mini XP from my Hiren's boot CD, and can see all my files. It just seems like the whole registry is corrupt.
Lol. Is that what faggots do when they are in an argument? Come at each other?
To be a little more politically sensitive, it would be a GUIDO who "comes at you". A faggot would "slap you silly" or "scratch your eyes out". Black dude most likely just curses and knocks you out.
And that's our racial stereotyping for computer geeks lesson for today.
he's not fucking with you, it's called a repair install
boot to the XP cd, say you want to set up windows at the first screen, not R to repair
on the next screen, select repair install
oh, and FUCK AVG. I see 3-4 PC's a day come on the bench with AVG that are so infected it's sad. Get Microsoft Security Essentials for real time safety, run SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes once a week and you'll be ok.
Are you using ComboFix to scan with? Sounds like you got a rootkit and CFix is the BOMB for removing those
he's not fucking with you, it's called a repair install
boot to the XP cd, say you want to set up windows at the first screen, not R to repair
on the next screen, select repair install
oh, and FUCK AVG. I see 3-4 PC's a day come on the bench with AVG that are so infected it's sad. Get Microsoft Security Essentials for real time safety, run SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes once a week and you'll be ok.
Are you using ComboFix to scan with? Sounds like you got a rootkit and CFix is the BOMB for removing those
if you run malware bytes AND AVG there should be no issues.
it repairs the operating system, your files should be safe. Before you do that find someone with an external usb to sata/pata connector and make an image of your disk using Acronis disk backup, free trial version is fully loaded. If you can't find anyone it should be ok, I just always back up anyting before doing repair installs just in case
I backed up my entire documents and settings folder. I read that I could lose everything in there and my documents. I've got the repair install running now, approx 37 minutes remaining.
the only time i've had to throw in the towel is when the HDD clicks when you boot. That's the sound of the read/write arm having a seizure, very bad sign, almost always from Seagate drives.
Okay. Running windows updates for many hours now. I'm up to SP3. Once done I start the shitty task of re-installing ALL my software.
I saved the DOCUMENTS and SETTINGS folder. However, everything in there was not deleted like the interweb said it would. The weird part is that it changed the names on my folders. Like, on the old setup inside c:\documents and settings\my documents it's now Pete's Music, Pete's Videos, Pete's etc... instead of My Music, My Videos, etc...
Maybe while I am reloading everything we can get a little discussion going here about the smartest, easiest, and safest ways to regularly back up the computer so this never happens again? I'm interested in 2 things,
1) backing up against data loss
2) creating a freeze frame of sorts of my basic setup once everything is installed and setup right. This would include all my apps, sample libraries, paths, etc.... So if this ever happened again, I can just reload to that image and start from there bypassing the three days of rebuilding windows and having to re-install all my shit.
p.s. - for those concerned, looks like my music files and project folders are IN TACT.
Thanks guys. Even conservationist, who I never expected to be helpful in my lifetime.
I have a 8 year old laptop loaded with windows home server and an external HD, every night, my whole computer backs up to it. At any point, I can tell it to re-flash my computer what it was last night or 2 months ago or october 2009.
easy way is to get an external USB drive and back up to it regularly. XP has no built in feature for that, which kind of sucks.
starting your music program might give you headaches if it remembers the original path when building a mix. Like track one should be c:\doc settings\music\folder...but now it's c:\doc and settings\petes music\folder....ya dig? I know Cool Edit is real particular about that
Pathing IS going to be a problem. Is there a way that I can go back and rename the admin accout PETE, and thus move all my saved stuff over and have it still be the main acct? Does that make sense? Like, I still have my /pete folder in docs and settings, but in the new installation of windows everything is using the /administrator [none -blah 2354212 blah blah] instead of /pete. Because when it got to the "set up users" screen, I hit skip whereas the first time I'd entered "pete". So can I somehow change the volume/system/admin names around to fix this?
Got ZUNE software installed, pointed it at my library, and I got manticora up and running. So firebox drivers are all set, realtek is disabled, and firewire card drivers are all set.
Now the long process of getting everything else running. Keep your fingers crossed I can just re-install my drum software and point it at the libraries I saved on my other drive.
Okay, I think I found and killed the virus. It was a work called b.dll, or the Bamital virus. Particularly nasty motherfucker. Hides on your system and changes your browser preferences, then pulls all kinds of shit onto your computer and steals your personal info as well as modify key OS files (thus my explorer.exe and winlogin.exe files getting red flagged by my anti virus.
I downloaded security essentials, and the SECOND it finished updating it detected it. Before I even ran a scan. And I have already run malwarebytes, which found nothing.
Watch out for this virus, it's all kinds of SHITTY.
Might as well run Combofix at this point too just to be sure. Malwarebytes won't detect rootkits and deeper problems of that nature, even though it's a good program.
Might as well run Combofix at this point too just to be sure. Malwarebytes won't detect rootkits and deeper problems of that nature, even though it's a good program.
Pathing IS going to be a problem. Is there a way that I can go back and rename the admin accout PETE, and thus move all my saved stuff over and have it still be the main acct? Does that make sense? Like, I still have my /pete folder in docs and settings, but in the new installation of windows everything is using the /administrator [none -blah 2354212 blah blah] instead of /pete. Because when it got to the "set up users" screen, I hit skip whereas the first time I'd entered "pete". So can I somehow change the volume/system/admin names around to fix this?
I don't think so. It has something to do with metadata and registry keys, the name is just what you see.
Get Microsoft Security Essentials for real time safety, run SuperAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes once a week and you'll be ok.
This is excellent advice.
Also, if you are prone to getting drunk and surfing anal midget porn sites (I KNOW I DO), go ahead and install that virtual machine with firefox. Make a nice fat icon on your desktop with some titties on it so you run that when you're drunk, and wake up in the morning to find your virtual machine full of viruses instead of your actual Windows install.
Bonus points for pr0nsurfing through linux. Makes you look like a badass.
I think I might just go to BB tomorrow and buy a portable HD, drag my entire C drive onto it, and reformat and do a fresh install. Literally spent all day just trying to get TWO programs up and running, but this computer hasn't been cleaned or reinstalled for like 5 years. There's just too much crap.
The Bamital virus spanked me. I reinstalled windows, saved my stuff, killed the virus and all the other crap it had brought onboard. Backed up my data, and reinstalled a clean windows. I'm still in the process of reinstalling everything.
protip: only download shit from trusted sources
protip: the moment you even think you've been infected run msconfig and check the startup tab
protip: http://www.sysinfo.org/startuplist.php
its really pretty simple: don't jack up your PC. I have not had a single virus on any of my PCs in almost 8-9 years. do a ritual...pay the price for the ritual.
are the only good home use security software. stay far away from anything norton, windows or AVG puts out.
I tried Eset, not impressed at all. It found no infections after scanning for 45 minutes, Microsoft SE then found 2 potential threats, although that took 2 hours to scan. Antivirus is really just an opinion MAN, none of them are 100% nor will they ever be.
its really pretty simple: don't jack up your PC. I have not had a single virus on any of my PCs in almost 8-9 years. do a ritual...pay the price for the ritual.
I've never had a virus either and I never used anti-virus until some asshole on this board made a good case for AVG.
So when my laptop died four days ago I thought I finally got a virus...I couldn't get the OS to boot, no safe mode, nothing. My friend took it and swore at it for a couple of days...then he saw AVG in my start up and deleted it. Computer: fixed. I didn't lose anything.
Fortunately I back up so I wouldn't have lost much but the week of work I didn't back up would have sucked to re-do.
This, essentially. AVG was great. Now, I'm done with it. Running Security Essentials, Malwarebytes, making a good boot disk, better file organization, and making regular backups from now on. Next time this happens, I just wanna re-format, reinstall, and be done with it.
Again, WHS. If any of my windows machines ge hit,I would lose at most one day and if I don't know when it happened, I have roll back to any back up going back months.
How much storage do you need for that? The files I backup currently take up about 5-600 gig, and I only have the 750 gig backup drive. So I think I could only really keep one backup of my whole system.
You didn't watch my video.
I have back ups of 2 computers going back to 10/2009. One computer has 128GB+1TB. The other computer has 500gb always full. All of my back ups back to 10/2009 are 1.75TB total
its really pretty simple: don't jack up your PC. I have not had a single virus on any of my PCs in almost 8-9 years. do a ritual...pay the price for the ritual.
Run Firefox, don't install Flash.
Don't log in as root user to browse the intertards.
its really pretty simple: don't jack up your PC. I have not had a single virus on any of my PCs in almost 8-9 years. do a ritual...pay the price for the ritual.
Run Firefox, don't install Flash.
explain.
post by ArrowHeadNLI at Apr 15,2011 12:08pm edited Apr 15,2011 12:08pm
OKAY, SO
Still having a strange issue here.
I'm losing bios settings.
I changed the battery on my board for a fresh one, way back when all this started, because my date kept changing and I thought it was my battery. (if only, eh?)
So every time I shut down and then start up again, my Bios settings keep changing. However, the bios time and date have not changed, so I'm pretty sure it's NOT the battery. My boot sequence keeps reverting back to #1=Floppy, even though I keep changing it to DVD player, and I keep disabling onboard sound, and it keeps reverting to enabled.
