Is it posible to repair damaged sectors in HD?

January 9, 2010

How to find out if I have physical damage in my HD? I have Windows 2000
Do I need special software for that?

Windows installation and seemingly whole harddrive ruined thanks to a retarded wireless adapter from netgear?

December 27, 2009

my dad bought the WG311 v3 wireless adapter from netgear for his computer. after installing the software it disabled user switching and logon…only the administrator that installed the software could logon. it said I had to uninstall the software so I did and next time I tried to find a way to just install the device driver without the software…well I did and then windows wouldent boot…it said NTLDR missing so I booted from the XP disc to do a repair…I ran bootfix…it didnt work. then I ran mbrfix(master boot record) and that didnt work…I also copied ntldr and ntdetect to root from XP cd. now here I am with the harddrive in my computer on vista and Im looking at the drive with computer management\disc management and it shows the drive as a single partition with 76.33GB FAT file system (which is correct) but if you explore the drive or check its properties it says there is only 10MB total space with 3.4MB used the only files on the drive are ntldr and ntdetect
wyntry is absolutely right(I especially like your reply to dwight lol) but I ran out of text space for the original question(evil 1000 character limit)…anyway as for that downloadable hotfix I did find that and wanted to use it but I made the mistake of researching the problem after trying to fix it myself and thanks to that wrongly installed driver I cant boot to windows to install the fix. thing is…I was going to reinstall XP but as I mentioned b4 even tho it is an 80GB HD and disc manager sees that…explorer itself only sees it as 10MB and when I go to install XP thats all it sees as well. so it wants me to format the drive but thats not an option for me as there are important things on the disc…is there a way to access the data so I can copy it to my HD’s on my computer so I can reformat the drive safely and then reinstall XP? that looks like what Im gonna have to end up doing…I just dont know how to access the "vanished" data on the drive…

Windows XP clean install; need advice on which options to choose?

December 24, 2009

My friend’s got a PC which seems to be on its way to being completely hosed, so I’m fixin’ to reformat her HD tonight and help her do a clean install of XP. Since I’m strictly a Mac user, I just want to make sure that I’m choosing the best options prior to and during the install process.

It’s a 2.5 ghz, Pentium 4 Sony Vaio desktop of some sort.

First of all, basic stuff:

What are the different ways of forcing this thing to use the Windows install CD as its boot drive? I know there are one or two obvious ways, but I know this also car vary from one PC to another.

Secondly:

Just in case there are any viruses hiding at some really deep level where most virus software can’t or won’t look, is there anything I should do at the BIOS level to make sure everything’s fresh and new?

Next:

When formatting the HD, what file system/format is the smartest one to choose?

Furthermore:

What options should I say "No" to during the XP install? If memory serves me correctly, it’s not like installing OS X where you have a fun ‘n’ easy interface that lets you leave out stuff you don’t need, such as foreign language libraries and drivers for printers you don’t own and Garage Band’s library* and whatnot. Is it possible to do a custom install, and if so, is it a good idea?

Lastly:

She’s entitled to a copy of XP, ’cause that’s what came with her computer when she bought it new. Naturally, she doesn’t recall whether she ever owned any system restore CDs or where they might be. Therefore, we’re using my copy of XP which, ahem, doesn’t ever need to be registered. However, since she [i]is[/i] entitled to full, legit status, is there a way to enter her PC’s serial number or something and have MS recognize that she’s fully on the up-and-up?

Like I said, this copy of XP will download and install MS updates just fine the way it is, but I figure, hypothetically, from a support standpoint, it can’t hurt for her computer to have all its ducks in a row. Is this possibly one instance where a person actually [i]would[/i] want to install and run the dreaded WGA? My every instinct says not to, but I figure if WGA’s whole purpose is to tell you how to make everything legit, and facilitate doing so, then it might possibly be of service in this case.

Thanks, as always, for your guidance in this matter!
*I’m pretty sure XP doesn’t include a Garage Band library.

I have Windows XP home edition; want to know how to format hard drive for a clean install. Thanks.?

December 14, 2009

I would appreciate if somebody can tell me how to format Hard drive in windows xp. I intend to do a clean install of operating system. I have Windows XP CD but it is SP-1; I downloaded SP-2 in 2004 when it was available.

So I plan to do a format of HD and clean install of XP SP-1. I would appeciate any help.

Thanks

What is this malware?

December 12, 2009

I don’t know why or if this got deleted before, but here it is again:

I had a user who had some type of malware, but I don’t know what it is. Now I have it on my portable drive (after using it to back up her data) and I got it on my PC after trying to run SAV on the portable. (I had to reimage both PCs to get trid of it.) But I need to clean the portable drive before I use it again.

I have run SAV, SpybotS&D, Malwarebytes, but nothing can even detect whatever this is.
The symptoms are:
User cannot open local HD. Error message is: Cannot find RECYCLER\S-8-8-24-100026533-100007783-100027606-8409.com c:\

The malware puts a false AUTORUN entry in the context (rigth click) menu. I have found this in the registry: C:\WINDOWS\system32\RunDLL32.EXE Shell32.DLL,ShellExec_RunDLL RECYCLER\S-8-8-24-100026533-100007783-100027606-8409.com C:\
Also it change the DNS entries from DHCP to 83.255.112.67 and 85.255.112.170

There was also a process running (even in safe mode) called system the was constantly using 50% of the proc time.

The user could not open or run any apps or do a proper shut down.

I could not install Hijackthis and it probably would not have been able to run anyway due to the erratic operation of the system.

Also the OS was XP Pro SP2.

Any ideas what this is or how to get rid of it without formatting the drive?

Thanks.

P.S. I forgot to say that it was also periotically trying to read the floppy drive with no disk in it.