Help! My computer has died!

[Cocoanut Koala]

I was just sitting there reading something when all of a sudden it went a way and was replaced by the blue screen of death which said on it, "Hard Error."

So I unplugged it from the wall and waited a bit and when Iplugged it back in, it always starts with these lines about what it is, and what its drive is and so forth, ending with Copyright such and such, then goes into the Windows screen and there you are.

But this time it stopped right after Copyright such and such and would not go on. I tried it a couple of times and it did the same thing. Just will not move on.

What to do? I have no idea what to do!

I'm downstairs on the old computer now and it barely functions, so I probably won't come back to read answers till maybe tomorrow.

Help!

:coco:

[Shagazm]

Someone help this hysterical woman!! :eek:


If it's still under warranty, call Dell, now!

[kita_dawg]

First: when you turn it on, does it beep? If so, how many times?

Read what is on the screen. Any error message?

Also need to know what kind of computer it is (model number and such, or as much as you know if you don't know that)

[Lain (is Bams)]

Sorry to hear you're having problems.

Generally BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) is caused by one of two situations... either you have a failing piece of hardware, or the software driver that Windows uses to communicate with the hardware is malfunctioning.

Some things that would be relevant are noises.... is there a distinct clunking sound coming from your tower? When a hard drive goes totally bad, most times there is a pinging sound that's very distinct.... three ping or click and then a silent whir noise...

"ping ping ping... whir... ping ping ping.. whir"

If it's making that sound, your hard drive is probably gone (99% probability).

If it's not making that sound, let's see if we can boot the machine in safe mode. After powering the unit up, start tapping the F8 key as the machine does it's copyright and information stuff, you need to hit it right when it flips to the windows part so it's easiest to just tap it every half second or so, until you get what you want.

If it works, you will see a text screen with several options on it, one of which should be 'Safe Mode - No Networking'. Boot the machine to Safe Mode and we'll go from there.

If it will not boot in Safe Mode, or it BSODS during boot in Safe Mode, something is trashed and we'll need to check the hardware with a *nix Live CD or something, to find out if your hardware is borked or if it's your Windows installation.

I'll check back when I can, I've stuck this in my subscriptions.

Good luck. :bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

no it does not beep. There is no error message on the screen. It just doesn't go beyond the part where it says "copyright," like it normally does.

The only error message it showed is when the thing I was reading first went blank to the blue screen, and then it said, "Hard Error."

It is a Dell about four years old, I don't remember what model. A G something.

I'm thinking it "will not boot up."

It's not still under warranty.

[Cocoanut Koala]

ok, i went up and looked, it says it is an XPS 410.

I think I willjust leave this computer on, and check answers now and then, cause this computer is a MESS. Takes forever to come up, on anything. I think it must be fulla viruses.

[Lain (is Bams)]

If it's 4 years old and it's dead, buy a new one and get what data you can. It sounds like your hard drive has quit on you.

Can you boot the machine with a Linux Boot CD? Am I overstepping your technical level (I didn't mean that to be rude I was just asking). :flowers:

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

My gawd it has Vista? :suicide:

:bong:

[JohnnyVann]

Even XP > Vista

:facepalm:

[Spaceman Opus]

Even XP > Vista

:facepalm:


Highly disagree based on my personal experience.

Once I shut off the annoying "Are you sure you wanted to hit the enter button?" notices I've found Vista far superior to XP.

YMM(and certainly does)V

[Govi]

Front Quad Pack Diagnostics LEDs Dell™ Dimension™, OptiPlex™, and XPS™ Desktops (http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/dsn/en/tree?journalid=87F88FCF4AF89438E040AC0A66E93C9F&treeid=286725)

From that page:
If the diagnostic LEDs are present on the back of the computer, they are labeled A, B, C, and D. If the LEDs are on the front, they are labeled 1, 2, 3, 4.
For information about the Diagnostic LEDs, refer to the Online User's Guide. Click Systems, then the make and model of the computer. Download the Owner's Manual or User's Guide. and refer to the Diagnostic Lights section.

If you have the manual handy, and you're getting a code on those lights, let us know what it is and what the manual says about it. I think you said that you're not getting any beeps of any kind from the computer when you boot it, but please confirm.

[Lain (is Bams)]

Oh yeah I totally forgot about the LEDs on the back. Way to go Govi! :woot:

Highly disagree based on my personal experience.

Once I shut off the annoying "Are you sure you wanted to hit the enter button?" notices I've found Vista far superior to XP.

YMM(and certainly does)V

I wouldn't say it's FAR superior, but if you disable UAC then you've effectively killed a good chunk of your malware protection that's built into Windows.

It would be nice if they refashioned things to work more like *nix systems where all users have basic privs and then escalate those privs via security dialogs and then there's a timeout before it will 'forget you are the boss', so to speak and ask again. It's certainly not every flipping time you launch something, ala Windoze.

:bong:

[Mulch]

1st off, i am so sorry that you are having these problems, :coco:

but to try to ensure that your data is intact (ie, your hard drive functions), you can do it yourself via a linux live disk, which isnt very easy and depending on what your hardware is and what flavor or linux that you choose, it can be a very daunting proposition, but it WILL save you $100s of dollars just in verifying/preserving your data

your alternative is to take it to the geeks squad, pay $500-$1000 for them to not do as much as you could do yourself if you're given correct guidance, and not even be able to recover your data or make your computer work at all, and still charge you to tell you the bad news

this method may give you good or bad news, and you may need an entire new computer, but the goal right now is preserving your data and finding the problem, on the cheap/free

using a live disk from linux will help you diagnose the problem yourself so you dont overspend if you take it in for repairs (vs doing it yourself, which is prolly easier than scrapbooking, believe it or not, once you get over the intimidation factor)

ubuntu linux is by far the flavor of choice for home users, and is easy to find online and burn a boot disk with

i got my mom off of aol using puppy linux live disk however, and it requires less resources, is more intuitive, almost as easy as aol, but has far less options than ubuntu, as ubuntu aims to replace windows entirely while puppy is a way to use linux to do simple things, like check email, browse websites, search the web or watch your media; there are many many many different flavors of linux you can use via live disk, i only suggest ubuntu for its robustness and goal of competing with windows, and puppy for its simplicity... the sheer amount of options is immense, your choices are virtually limitless, i just think these 2 are best for YOU (and i suspect puppy will be more your speed)... and they all are free, so you arent risking cash on trying to do it yourself

either way, if you are able to boot into a linux live disk and find your files (dont install, run as live disk), that means that your hard drive is functioning and that your data is almost all safe (more on that later)

bams, bunns, or another linux geek might have to help you further in creating a live disk if this does not lead you to instructions you can follow yourself using google

you google ubuntu linux and puppy linux

you download the iso file onto your (old slow) computer. you burn each iso file as a boootable disk on CD (and label them correctly with a sharpie)

you put the disk in your CD drive of the bad computer, reboot with the linux disk in the drive, and hope your bios is set to boot from your cd 1st (if it isnt, more instructions may be needed, not difficult, just an additional step)

it will then load a linux screen that allows you to boot from disk or install

you want to boot from disk, DO NOT INSTALL

it you are able to boot into linux from the live disk (ubuntu or puppy), seek further instructions at :sc: on checking your file structure to make sure that your data is intact (which means it is likely another problem, like a power supply or ram issue which is a much better issue to deal with, diagnose and fix yourself easily, if you can just follow some common sense step by step instructions and ignore the intimidation of working with technology you arent native to. like i said, scrapbooking is likely much more difficult that more computer hardware diagnosis/replacement).

if your data is intact, then your worst case scenario is buying a new computer and that will cost as much or slightly more than having gleek squad repair or diagnose you OLD computer. in terms of dollars and cents, installing your old hard drive yourself into a new computer will be cheaper than having the gleek squad try to make your OLD computer work again

i hope your data is safe. 4 years is about right for a new computer anyway. perhaps you should decide on your budget and see if :kita: can build you a better computer cheaper than you could get off the shelf. just tell her your requirements, and the off the shelf model that is in your budget, and see if she can match the price with a better computer or build the same for you cheaper

you should also look into offsite backup solutions to ensure your data is safe even if your house burns down. pm my abe froman toon or my gmail account named mulchmaker if you want some suggestions based on my experience in this area. most options are reasonably priced and will protect your data from dead hard drives, stolen computers, burnt down houses, viruses, or other catastrophes. consider the reasonable cost (like $5 a month) insurance on your personal digital data

i also have a ventrilo server, so voice support may make this a much more efficient troubleshooting, diagnosis, and repair than posting on a forum and waiting days for someone to respond with a solution that might not work. just pm or email me for vent info if you want help :coco:, and if i cant help, ill give the vent info to someone here who can

i wish i had more time to help right now, hopefully someone else here will pick up where i left off

Highly disagree based on my personal experience.

Once I shut off the annoying "Are you sure you wanted to hit the enter button?" notices I've found Vista far superior to XP.

YMM(and certainly does)V

nah, its totally ineffective with it's use of resources and consequently bloated and a resource hog

it also offers little more than cosmetic improvements, and very little in terms of usefulness

windows 7 seems like the heir of xp, with my limited use of it. yes it has the annoying "are you sure" popups that vista "blessed" us with, but it retains the cosmetic enhancements of vista, while allowing you to customize your workflow to, say, the simplicity of xp while being conservative with resources

it also seems to make much better use of resources and does not have the bloat of vista

vista is to windows 7 what windows ME was to xp imho

vista was wrong in every way, its goals, its timing, its use of resources, its ease of use and customization to improve workflow... it was plain FAIL and xp laps vista even today

OTOH, windows 7, imho, gives people a reason to upgrade from xp and seems focused on improving resource use, security, and customization of workflow

again, just my opinion, but you are quite the exception to the response from the embarrassment that was vista

it is very reminiscent of the debacle that was windows me (98 SP2 was MILES better)

I wouldn't say it's FAR superior, but if you disable UAC then you've effectively killed a good chunk of your malware protection that's built into Windows.

It would be nice if they refashioned things to work more like *nix systems where all users have basic privs and then escalate those privs via security dialogs and then there's a timeout before it will 'forget you are the boss', so to speak and ask again. It's certainly not every flipping time you launch something, ala Windoze.

:bong:

the UAC is in effect in win 7, but it is not as obnoxious as in vista. but the structure encourages a *nix setup where you use the admin account strictly for admining and installing shit for all users, while encouraging a standard user for 95% of your needs (which of course, most people ignore and still use the admin account, hence the NEED for the UAC; to protect users from themselves).

windows 7, imho was a good example of lessons learned and applied; lessons taught by the failure of vista (despite the good intention of the UAC) and the security of root/admin learned from *nix

i am not the worlds biggest microsoft fan, but they are learning, which is why most attacks, worms, viri, and hacks are via 3rd party apps like acrobat and flash... windows isnt perfect, but they seem to be doing their best to learn from their mistakes and the success of others and windows 7 is the product of those collective experiences

there still is no excuse for windows vista or ME

just my $0.02

back on topic, :coco: can spend a shitload of money and get nowhere, or we can help her at least know where she stands so she can make an informed decision on how to proceed, i am not sure i have the time right now to do it myself, but let's help :coco: as a community, she has been a supporter of :sc: from the very first month (both versions, i might add), and we can save her hundreds of dollars and possibly her data. lets do this!

[Cocoanut Koala]

Thanks, y'all! (And thanks, Mulch!)

(1) I had a lot of hope in the F8 thing, Bams. I clicked and clicked as the copyright stuff came up, but it did nothing. Once the copyright stuff was finished coming up, it would beep when I clicked F8, but then did nothing.

I might try again later just for the heck of it.

No, it isn't making any particular noises like you were talking about, the whirring and so forth. Nothing out of the ordinary from the usual noises it makes when I start it up.

It did say "Hard Error" when the BSOD first came up (it said it on that screen), in case that means anything.

(2) There are no ABCD lights on the back. (Maybe that is for quad core? I don't think this is quad core.)

(3) I don't have Linux, so not sure how that Linux boot disk or whatever it is would or would not work with my computer?

(4) I don't have VISTA. In fact, I would have gotten the computer sooner, but it had ONLY Vista. There must have been a lot of people like me, because some months later they offered it with XP if you wanted it, and that's when I got this computer.

(5) I designed this entire computer based on advice - printed out and collated - from you guys! When we were on SC MKI. I designed it precisely to work on SL.

So the whole computer was actually designed by you guys in the first place!

(6) My main concern is, of course, getting my photos and writings off of it. A fair amount is backed up on an external hard drive, but not all.

(7) At the same time, this was a pretty high end computer to start with - not high-end enough for a serious gamer who needs to kill stuff faster than the next guy in WOW, but pretty high-end anyhow. My instinct is that it is not the end of the line for the entire machine.

That's just a weird instinct. I keep getting the feeling if it could only get into Windows, I'd be fine; and that getting into windows isn't impossible. That's just bull on my part, really, but I thought I'd throw it in, cause these instincts aren't always off the mark.

(8) I don't like the idea of Geek Guys; I've heard they aren't very good. I have thought of calling Dell, even though it's not still under warranty. Concerning money, I would rather get the computer working than have to buy a new one. Of course, I would like to not lose my data, either!!

(9) Don't worry about insulting my level of expertise, Bams, because there IS no level of expertise. Just imagine that I'm a kindergartener or something. There is no worry about making me feel like you think I'm stupid or anything, because I *am* stupid.

So now that the F8 didn't work, is there anything else you can suggest?

:coco:

P.S. This computer down here is REALLY horrible. So I'll probably again, wait a while before I check back later.

P.S. Every time I try something on the computer (the good one that's broken), I have to unplug it in order to turn it off.

[kita_dawg]

Your mobo may be dead.

A pain in the ass the replace and fix. It is like the central nervous system of your computer, connecting all the separate components together and allowing them to talk to each other.


HOWEVER, there is one pesky part that can cause these problems as well that is an extremely simple fix. Your power supply. Those die all the time, and when they do, they cause a SLEW of errors, making you think your computer has gone off the deep end and can never come back. In reality, it is a 50-60 dollar fix and, if there is a problem, is the most 'desirable' problem to have. The good thing about it as well is if you order a new one, put it in, and it doesnt fix your problem, all stores will also take it back :) So it is definitely worth it to try to replace the power supply first.

Do you know anyone with a small bit of tech know-how? Anyone who has taken apart a computer before would be able to stick a new power supply in for you. You can do it yourself, but it would involve a bit of research so you know what you are looking at. If you do it once, you will always be able to do it again. It is super easy, and *almost* all plugs only go in one place, so hard to mess up. The place where most people mess up is missing one of the plugs and the computer not going on because of it!

[Govi]

Dell's site says that the XPS 410 is a duo-core and it should have the diagnostic lights on the back panel, tucked into a small area between some connectors, as shown here.
http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1183&d=1285980485

Normal would be with all four lights green. The lights can have three states: off, yellow, or green. If the lights are working and the code driving them can determine the problem, you should have some combination of those states showing on the four lights. If no lights are lit, then the failure is before the system loads its BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), which could be a power supply.

My Dells all go directly to the BIOS if I hit the DEL (delete) key when the logo or copyright message is displaying, within the first seconds after turning power on. Try that, too. If you see a BIOS screen, then don't change anything, but review what it says about your system to make sure that everything you think is there is recognized by the cpu, too.

BTW, a typical BIOS screen looks something like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/AwardBIOS_CMOS_Setup_Utility.png
You move through it with the keyboard arrows or the mouse (if it recognizes the mouse). To leave the BIOS without changing anything, you hit the ESC key.

[kita_dawg]

Ah, ok, she just needs to hit a different key to get to BIOS. If that doesn't load, it really is only one of two things :p

[Oryx Tempel]

Wow you guys are SMART.

My computer gets a BSOD but it's always on hot days. I need a new computer, I know, but for now, keeping the cover off and airdusting it REGULARLY has helped immensely.

[Uncle Fester]

Seeing as its now saurday the likelyness of finding a shop open will be slim.

But Coco maybe you can find a local shop that will work on the machine.

What Mulch is suggesting is running the linux program from your cdrom. And yes it will run on your computer. What it will do is allow you to get the data off your harddrive so if something goes boom you dont loose it all.

I truly suggest a local shop, but avoid geek squad at all costs.

This is what bams suggested to P2 a while back.
Direct download (http://www.hirensbootcd.net/download/Hirens.BootCD.11.1.zip)
Hirens Bootcd (http://www.hirensbootcd.net/download.html)

It is also what I used to get my stuff from my HD before I formatted. But this is only suggested if you feel comfortable using a *nix live cd.

[Malia]

I had a HD die on me in similar fashion a while back, when I took it to a shop they were able to get it running again for much less than cost of a new PC. I went ahead and bought a new HD anyway as I no longer trusted that one, and they just mirrored the OS and all my data onto the new HD. Then dropped the old HD into an external drive case to use for the BACKUPS that I wasn't doing regularly enough... :facepalm:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Dell's site says that the XPS 410 is a duo-core and it should have the diagnostic lights on the back panel, tucked into a small area between some connectors, as shown here.
http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1183&d=1285980485

Normal would be with all four lights green. The lights can have three states: off, yellow, or green. If the lights are working and the code driving them can determine the problem, you should have some combination of those states showing on the four lights. If no lights are lit, then the failure is before the system loads its BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), which could be a power supply.

My Dells all go directly to the BIOS if I hit the DEL (delete) key when the logo or copyright message is displaying, within the first seconds after turning power on. Try that, too. If you see a BIOS screen, then don't change anything, but review what it says about your system to make sure that everything you think is there is recognized by the cpu, too.

BTW, a typical BIOS screen looks something like this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c8/AwardBIOS_CMOS_Setup_Utility.png
You move through it with the keyboard arrows or the mouse (if it recognizes the mouse). To leave the BIOS without changing anything, you hit the ESC key.

Mine does not look like that on the back. There is a place with lights, right next to where some cords come in. It has 3 lights. (But it looks to be a place where another cord could come in; in other words, all of those places may have those lights,but this one, having no cord in it, I can see.)

Imagine it as a triangle. The top of the triangle has one light which is flashing yellow.

The two lights under it are orange, not flashing.

I tried pushing delete, and it didn't do anything. (Except beep once the copyright info had come up.)

I'm going to try to find "a shop." There are a couple in the phone book that come out to your home. Of those that don't, they are like Best Buy and I forget what else.

Of those, I'm tending toward one of the ones that come to your home.

What do you think?

:coco:

P.S. What's funny is a few weeks or so ago I dreamed this happened. It was an unusual dream, so I wrote it down in the dreams thread.

I should have paid attention to that dream and backed up more stuff.

According to my dream, it will cost me $1500 to fix this. lol

[Govi]

If your hard drive had failed, you would be able to get into the BIOS, so it's unlikely to be your hard drive; all your data should be safe.

Something is keeping your system from loading the BIOS. It may be as Kita suggests, then: your power supply has given up the ghost or the motherboard has failed. I suggest you call Dell and have them send a service person to your house, one who is prepared to do an on-the-spot replacement of your power supply. Motherboard replacement is more elaborate, as you might guess, so the tech from Dell will probably need to take your system if that's what s/he diagnoses. It may also be a dead cpu or other chip on the mb.

If you have any computer-savvy person that you could ask to check your power supply, that would be the first thing to do. Have her/him put in a new power supply is the easiest way to check this. Get all the information (make, model number, anything on the power supply) when buying a replacement power supply; Dell uses unique-to-Dell power supplies, usually there's something unique about the connectors. Keep your receipt for the new power supply, in case it doesn't work, i.e., doesn't bring your system back to life, so that you can return the power supply if need be.

$1500 will get you a brand new computer, btw, a nice one. You can have the hard drive from your old system installed as a second drive in your new system and get all your stuff off of it at your leisure, if you know you way around the places that you filed things.

Does your Dell have a longer model name, "Dimension XPS 4100" for example? I don't understand the business of not having the four lights in the position I showed, they are pretty definite about there being 4 lights as shown, front or back. Dell is a bit confusing when trying to find info about "XPS 410" so I'm wondering if there's more to the model name and number.

Also, since you seem to be getting a beep code of some kind--the beep at power-on--what kind of beep is it? Long, short, several beeps (if so, how many), the beep codes are kind of like Morse code: they have long and short combinations.

[Spaceman Opus]

I don't understand the business of not having the four lights in the position I showed, they are pretty definite about there being 4 lights as shown, front or back.

http://i432.photobucket.com/albums/qq43/Colt_Cobra2002/THEREARE4LIGHTS.jpg

[Govi]

This is the second drawing/manual for Dell XPS 410 that I've found. Does it looks like yours? Do you have diagnostic lights where this one shows them? Are they lit? In what pattern?
http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1184&d=1286052566

[kita_dawg]

Govi, I looked up the computer, and the one I found on Dell's website does not have lights on the back:

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xps410/en/SM_EN/about.htm#wp1054637

Maybe you found a newer model? I think Coco said this one was 4 years old.

But, anyways, I agree on giving the power supply a whirl. There is a slim chance it is the mobo, and if it is, it really isnt worth it to hunt down a new one for a computer that old. But a cheap and easy fix is always the first thing that should be tried. Coco, I forgot what you guys do for a living. Do either of you have a tech guy or crew on staff at work? If you ask them to replace a power supply, they know that is an easy thing and most likely will do it for you for a couple beers. If you find a *good* shop, they wont charge more than 20 dollars labor to put it in (imho, that is still WAY too much, but it is NOTHING compared to geek squad/ best buy asinine prices).

Now, after looking through the Dell website, I am almost positive your power supply is NOT proprietary. Your computer is old enough, and the upgrades they offer are third party power supplies that are standard on the market (just very overpriced). You can confirm that it is a standard power supply if you can find the receipt or specs somewhere that say exactly which power supply is in there.

The next step is to go to www.newegg.com and find a power supply! They have great search tools, and all you really need to do is look within your price range and choose the one with the best reviews. That is the secret to shopping there, is to follow reviews. I can pick one out for you too, if you would like. For your computer, I don't imagine it would even come close to needing more than around 500w, so I should be able to find one for you in the 40 dollar range. You will pay a bit more to get one from best buy, but trust me when I say to KNOW which one you want when you go in there. They will try to upsell you something you dont need plus extras if you dont.

[Mulch]

:kita:s supercomputer cost her around $1000

and as govi said, putting the old hard drive in a new computer is a pretty painless process and all your files should still be there (although you will have to poke around if you dont exactly know where you put them in the actual windows file structure, and if you kept it in "my documents" or "My pictures" folder, it is very convoluted to locate initially but you can just install a shortcut and copy them to the new hard drive

if you are going to spend more than $500 on diagnostics and repairs, just get a new computer. you can get a better computer than your old one for that price, most likely even without building it yourself and have your old hard drive up and running in it with little fuss

[Cocoanut Koala]

I think it is a Dimension.

Yesterday I spent some time working on this VERY slow downstairs (dial-up) computer. Can't get the McAffee virus thing that is supposed to come with AOL to get on it (it stopped, and won't get back), and spent literally all day yesterday (and overnight) having it download and install Zone Alarm, at least.

So today it is a little faster - for what reason I do not know. Anyway, I am on here to tell you that the computer is now in "a shop."

Researching for a shop wasn't easy to do, as nothing is easy to do on this computer! But I feel you all may approve of my choice. It is not a Geek-Comes-to-Your-House thing, and it is also not a Big-Box-Best-Buy thing.

It is this place not too very far from here that had reviews on the web, and most of them were positive, indicating that these guys don't cost too much, fix problems well, appreciate their customers, are honest, etc.

As I said, I couldn't do a very exhaustive research because it takes forever for anything to come up, but my husband wanted to get it there as soon as I finally made a decision, and he rushed it over just as they were walking out the door and locking up. I guess I will hear something on Monday.

Anyway, I had called up them up and told the guy that the computer screen disappeared and this message "Hard Error" came up on a blue screen, and when I unplugged the computer and turned it on again, it wouldn't get past that info.

He said: Hard drive error. Hard drive is probably shot.

I knew enough from reading here to make some noises, "Some people have said somthing about power supply," but he didn't seem to think that was it.

He said (assuming tht it is shot hard drive) that they would try to mirror the data in order to recover it. He said that sometimes can't be done. Without sending off the drive somewhere where they individually take apart elements (and costs maybe $800).

He didn't sound real optimistic about any of it.

He said they would then put in a new hard drive.

Does all that sound reasonable to you guys? I did this rather than call Dell - which is also what I was thinking about doing (and this was before I read the post here about doing that), but didn't want to do that, because I know that when you are not in warranty in Dell they charge an arm and a leg just for every minute you talk to them on the phone.

Though I probably should have called and just asked anyhow. But shoot, my back is flipping killing me, even through the pills (I don't know how I would have survived had I not got more of them), and the pills also make me a tad goofy/removed from things.

So I have come to terms with the fact that data maybe unrecoverable, and that means some pictures, and some writings, and some various programs I have paid for that I can't even remember the names of (P-cillin MAY be one of them, one I loved, but I can't recall), and probably Scrapbook Delux and I don't know what all else I'm not thinking of at the moment that may be lost.

But a philosophical attitude has occured to me, and it is this:

If we had not taken those pictures in the first place, then we wouldn't have them either, would we? In other words, I can just pretend we never had them in the first place. Ditto the writings. As for the programs, hubby said well maybe you will just have to buy them again.

Course there is also the pain in the butt thing of it all; I don't know how one deals with a new hard drive, or gets windows back, or anything.

So I will let you know how this turns out.

But I feel fairly comfortable with the guys who have it now. Mind you, it wasn't the exhaustive research like I usually do, but I managed to look up a handful of places and people nearby, using this computer and the phone book, and I liked what I read about those guys. There was only like one bad review, and it was stupid, just a short "they didn't fix anything" thing.

I greatly appreciate all your advice and your holding my hand through this whole thing, and giving options.

:coco:

[Govi]

Coco, if what you saw was "hard error" and not "hard drive error" then be sure that that is emphasized to your shop. If they go after the hard drive as the culprit and it's not--as seems to be the case--you may, probably will, lose data in their erroneous attempts to repair a good hard drive.

A hard drive error on a Dell allows you to get into the BIOS screen. Short story: sometimes my system's boot-up timing is such that the hard drive has not spun up when the BIOS looks for it and it reports a fatal error for the hard drive. The first few times it happened, I went to the BIOS to see what was what; all my drives were there as normal, so I rebooted successfully. The point of my little story is that a hard drive failure still allows you to get into the BIOS; you reported that the DEL key did not allow you into the BIOS, so that points to something other than your hard drive. Think: Power Supply, Motherboard, and CPU; one of those is the likeliest failure, given your descriptions. If you can bear it through your pain and muzziness, or your husband can serve as your spokesman, make sure your techs know that you could not get to the BIOS so that they'll try that, too, and be able to see what happens. If they are smart, they will draw the right conclusions.

[Mulch]

Coco, if what you saw was "hard error" and not "hard drive error" then be sure that that is emphasized to your shop. If they go after the hard drive as the culprit and it's not--as seems to be the case--you may, probably will, lose data in their erroneous attempts to repair a good hard drive.

A hard drive error on a Dell allows you to get into the BIOS screen. Short story: sometimes my system's boot-up timing is such that the hard drive has not spun up when the BIOS looks for it and it reports a fatal error for the hard drive. The first few times it happened, I went to the BIOS to see what was what; all my drives were there as normal, so I rebooted successfully. The point of my little story is that a hard drive failure still allows you to get into the BIOS; you reported that the DEL key did not allow you into the BIOS, so that points to something other than your hard drive. Think: Power Supply, Motherboard, and CPU; one of those is the likeliest failure, given your descriptions. If you can bear it through your pain and muzziness, or your husband can serve as your spokesman, make sure your techs know that you could not get to the BIOS so that they'll try that, too, and be able to see what happens. If they are smart, they will draw the right conclusions.

:qft:

govi is quite rightr, :coco:, the bios sequence is prior to the hard drive sequence, if you aren't getting to the bios, the culprit is not likely the hardrive

be careful with these folks, as govi said, trying to access data on your hard drive before they have ruled out all the other potential causes can cause data loss when there is no reason for the data loss.

power supply, motherboard, and cpu is truly where the problem probably lies. they may be telling you that your data is at risk ONLY to alert you to a worst case scenerio just in case.

call them 1st thing in the morning and tell them the error said "HARD ERROR" and not "HARD DRIVE ERROR" and that your friends from around the country suspect another piece of hardware problem because you cant get it to bios or post

you do NOT want them starting diagnostics on your hard drive 1st, and while they are correct that it could cost as much as $800 to retrieve your data if the hard drive is broke, tell them to hand it to you in a sealed anti-static bag and that you will handle that yourself. (we can help you find a place to send away if you choose that route, the idea of getting them to hand you the hard drive is so they know they cant "upsell" $800 in data retrieval services to you if they are less than scrupulous.)

you are just asking them to test powersupply, the motherboard, and the cpu primarily

your data is most likely ok based on the symptoms that you reported here, and kita and i think they are telling you a worst case scenerio, so dont worry too much (although there is a chance your hard drive is bad, the symptoms dont match that)

good luck :coco:, just make sure you are proactive with them testing the components we keep telling you FIRST

hard drive crashes are not very common. my current computer has had 3 power supplies. pretty much every desktop i ever had has needed the power supply replaced at lease once. it is a VERY common thing and usually all the symptoms are screwy side effects of lack of power

[Uncle Fester]

Coco I want to add this, make sure they understand before they do ANYTHING they should call you. Post what they tell you and let the peeps here help advise you. Im also with Govi of making sure they clearly understand what error you saw.

If you called and it was nearing closing time the guy might have had qutting time mind. SO tomorrow I would call them about an hour after they open and clarify with them. It will be much better in the end.

[Govi]

It's too bad it's already at the shop, because I would suggest to you two things you could have tried.

From the photos you've shown of your home, I can see that your are a meticulous housekeeper, but have you dusted the interior of your computer? If you have not, get a can of "air" from Radio Shack (they call it "Dust Remover Spray"), unplug your system, open the case, and use the can of "air" to blow all the dust off of the parts. You can use a vacuum cleaner's hose attachment to collect the dust as you blow it off, but don't touch the hose's plastic nozzle to the interior of your computer; you might get a static electricity discharge that could damage your comp further.

The second thing is to check that all the connectors are properly seated, particularly the ones to your motherboard. You can do this by touching the metal cabinet of the computer and while touching the metal, use your other hand to push on the connectors one at a time, towards the motherboard. If one or more shows signs of having been loose before you pushed it back home, that could be a cause of your problem. It shouldn't take more than a few pounds force to push on the connectors, don't go hammer and tongs at it. Also, look at all the cables/wires running around and check for mechanical damage or discoloration, even burning. You would have smelled something if there is burning, but maybe not through your pain meds or a cold.

Anyway, your shop will have to open the case and look within and if they are good, those are the second things they'll check, after observing its power-on operation.

[Cocoanut Koala]

A MILLION THANKS, govi. [Edit: This was to post before your last post]

And thanks, too, for the advice, Mulch and Fester.

I will do all the above.

I'm down here on this computer trying tofix IT. Hubby's laptop from school apparently wont allow itself connected to the phone wires here, which I find odd.

If these guys do good by my other computer, I think I will just take this one into them and let it clean it up.

I just tried downloading microsoft security essentials for it, and had problems doing that.

Then it went into this song and dance on its own, about Internet Explorer instead of Firefox, so I let it do that, thinking it might help.

My attempt here is to get some sort of virus protection.

But now thanks to these attempts, this is all slow AGAIN. I will fiddle around with it some more, but my plan is actually to hopefully take this into them too. I got a feeling they can clean it up much, much faster, and save me hours of pointless stupidity wasted on it Trying to do it by dial-up, too, makes it painfully tedious, and I don't seem to be getting anywhere anyhow.

Anyway, thanks oodles! I even kind of understand what you're saying. :D

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

It's too bad it's already at the shop, because I would suggest to you two things you could have tried.

From the photos you've shown of your home, I can see that your are a meticulous housekeeper, but have you dusted the interior of your computer? If you have not, get a can of "air" from Radio Shack (they call it "Dust Remover Spray"), unplug your system, open the case, and use the can of "air" to blow all the dust off of the parts. You can use a vacuum cleaner's hose attachment to collect the dust as you blow it off, but don't touch the hose's plastic nozzle to the interior of your computer; you might get a static electricity discharge that could damage your comp further.

The second thing is to check that all the connectors are properly seated, particularly the ones to your motherboard. You can do this by touching the metal cabinet of the computer and while touching the metal, use your other hand to push on the connectors one at a time, towards the motherboard. If one or more shows signs of having been loose before you pushed it back home, that could be a cause of your problem. It shouldn't take more than a few pounds force to push on the connectors, don't go hammer and tongs at it. Also, look at all the cables/wires running around and check for mechanical damage or discoloration, even burning. You would have smelled something if there is burning, but maybe not through your pain meds or a cold.

Anyway, your shop will have to open the case and look within and if they are good, those are the second things they'll check, after observing its power-on operation.

Well, I USED to be a fairly meticulous housekeeper (and very organized). However my health has made me not as good anymore, and this back injury has me just about determined to get some sort of help.

I already knew about the dust in the computer thing, but I didn't mention it because I am SO ASHAMED that I have never done anything about that.

And that isn't because of health, that is because of I am extremely fearful of operating on the machine in any way!

:coco:

P.S. I took detailed notes on what to tell the guys when I call them, because I can't print anything out. There is a printer here, but it doesn't work! I don't know why he insists on keeping it around if it doesn't work. I hate that.

[Spaceman Opus]

Coco - for the computer you're using, I suggest CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download).

It's a fairly quick running program that cleans up all the extraneous crap a computer picks up in its travels around the internet. It might help speed you up a little bit while you're waiting for news on the other comp.

[Mulch]

Coco - for the computer you're using, I suggest CCleaner (http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download).

It's a fairly quick running program that cleans up all the extraneous crap a computer picks up in its travels around the internet. It might help speed you up a little bit while you're waiting for news on the other comp.

:qft:

defragging can speed you up a bit too

[Cocoanut Koala]

I already defragged (plus ran whatever little cleaning programs, registry cleanup spot bot and such were on here.

Thank you for the link, Mulch; I downloaded it and let it do its thing cleaning up more.

:coco:

[Uncle Fester]

I have to ask...are you seriously using dial up for the pc your on now? If so why?

Also even tho both mulch and spaceman are hippies it was spaceman that linked it lol.

[JohnnyVann]

Buy a mac :p


:sofa:


















What? Too soon? :angel2:

[Lain (is Bams)]

Just DO NOT USE windows defragmentation tools. Get MyDefrag (http://mydefrag.com/), or something else like it. Windows Defrag WILL FARG UP YOUR SHIT! I should add this to my sig, start the Bams tech support sig. :D

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

I have to ask...are you seriously using dial up for the pc your on now? If so why?

Also even tho both mulch and spaceman are hippies it was spaceman that linked it lol.

What's wrong with dial-up? If you are using an SSH terminal or a Linux machine booted to CLI rather than X windows..... console stuff runs good on dial-up!

LEAVE DIAL-UP ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!

haha.

/me wanders off to re-pack her pipe. Good weed this week.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

I have to ask...are you seriously using dial up for the pc your on now? If so why?

Also even tho both mulch and spaceman are hippies it was spaceman that linked it lol.

Dial-up is on the downstairs computer. (The old one.)

I have the computer back now! They fixed it! $79.

They said it was a virus, some sort of root virus. I said what about all those virus things I have on, and they said it is odd, but that is what it was.

They also put on Malawarebytes AntiMalware program that they like, as well as Microsoft Security Essentials. (Which I would have thought I had on here.)

So now I want to take the other computer into them. I've been working on it since this computer died, and it is really hopeless. I managed to download a free virus program on it (the McAfee the AOL had on it stopped and won't work anymore), and that took like 24 hours. I had tried to put Microsoft Security Essentials on it first (which also took a day), but it wouldn't go on.

So I'm sure it is full of viruses.

This one, though, I don't know how it got a virus, when I have good things on it to prevent them.

Anyway, it works now! And no loss of data for me to have to be philosophical about!

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

This is the second drawing/manual for Dell XPS 410 that I've found. Does it looks like yours? Do you have diagnostic lights where this one shows them? Are they lit? In what pattern?
http://www.secondcitizen.net/Forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1184&d=1286052566

No, no diagnostic lights on the front, either.

[Roxie]

Some day we need to teach Coco how to build her own system :)

[Govi]

Dial-up is on the downstairs computer. (The old one.)

I have the computer back now! They fixed it! $79.

They said it was a virus, some sort of root virus. I said what about all those virus things I have on, and they said it is odd, but that is what it was.

They also put on Malawarebytes AntiMalware program that they like, as well as Microsoft Security Essentials. (Which I would have thought I had on here.)

So now I want to take the other computer into them. I've been working on it since this computer died, and it is really hopeless. I managed to download a free virus program on it (the McAfee the AOL had on it stopped and won't work anymore), and that took like 24 hours. I had tried to put Microsoft Security Essentials on it first (which also took a day), but it wouldn't go on.

So I'm sure it is full of viruses.

This one, though, I don't know how it got a virus, when I have good things on it to prevent them.

Anyway, it works now! And no loss of data for me to have to be philosophical about!

:coco:

I'm glad to hear that good news! So different from all our guesses as to the cause of your problem, too.

Did they tell you the actual name their detection software gave to the root virus? McAfee runs a website (http://vil.nai.com/vil/default.aspx) (as do others) that allow you to learn a little bit about the virus, which may clue you in to the ways in which you were vulnerable to the one that took your system down. It's a very curious virus, since it seems like a well-crafted virus would not want to break the system it infects, unless it has already "reproduced" itself on other systems and breaking systems was the purpose for which the virus was made.

[Cocoanut Koala]

Some day we need to teach Coco how to build her own system :)

Ha! I'm scared to even take the back off it to blow the dust out!

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

I'm glad to hear that good news! So different from all our guesses as to the cause of your problem, too.

Did they tell you the actual name their detection software gave to the root virus? McAfee runs a website (http://vil.nai.com/vil/default.aspx) (as do others) that allow you to learn a little bit about the virus, which may clue you in to the ways in which you were vulnerable to the one that took your system down. It's a very curious virus, since it seems like a well-crafted virus would not want to break the system it infects, unless it has already "reproduced" itself on other systems and breaking systems was the purpose for which the virus was made.

No, they didn't tell me. That would be interesting to know.

I thought $79 dollars was a good price, don't you?

:coco:

[Govi]

You've had the best experience with a computer repair service of which I've heard. That's a great price! And fast service, too! Yay!! :frolic:

[Roxie]

Ha! I'm scared to even take the back off it to blow the dust out!

:coco:

If you can change a light bulb and use a screw driver.
You can assemble a computer.


I taught my daughter to do it.

[Lain (is Bams)]

WHAT? I cry bullshit. Do they even know what a 'root' virus is. First of all, they're called 'BOOT BLOCK' viruses because their code resides in the 'BOOT BLOCK' of the hard drive.

Secondarily, these infections are so rare that I find it highly suspicious there was such a thing on your machine. Did they provide you with a report from their diagnosis? I'd be interested to see the name of this alleged 'root' virus as well as their method for determining it's source.

You are legally entitled to those reports just as you are with an auto-shop.

Glad you got it fixed, $79 isn't very expensive and you got off cheap, but I'm still very suspicious of the cause. I think either 1) they are guessing because they can't figure out the problem, you told them you didnt wanna sink alot of money into it, and they figured they could get $80 for it.... or 2) you actually have a 'boot block' virus and I'd be interested in the information, because there are very limited attack vectors for 'boot block' viruses now and I feel the need to know. :D

:bong:
:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

They also put on Malawarebytes AntiMalware program that they like, as well as Microsoft Security Essentials. (Which I would have thought I had on here.)


Blah don't use this and you should uninstall it. Anti-Malware apps are USELESS for prohibiting infections and only serve to REMOVE them IF and WHEN you become infected. It's not worth the resource overhead an possible system contamination to use these tools. You're not concerned about past malware infections who's security holes have been patched, you're AV database will flag these just fine.

Adaware, SpyBot, etc.... all SHIT. Not like anyone ever listens to me, but at least I fucking warned you.


So now I want to take the other computer into them. I've been working on it since this computer died, and it is really hopeless. I managed to download a free virus program on it (the McAfee the AOL had on it stopped and won't work anymore), and that took like 24 hours. I had tried to put Microsoft Security Essentials on it first (which also took a day), but it wouldn't go on.


I wouldn't do this until you're sure they actually know what they're doing. The 'fix' on your other machine sounds flakey. I'm guessing someone got frustrated and in a fit of desperation used the 'fix mbr' tool. Sounds like more than likely you're boot block was corrupt, I doubt it was virus related. Depending on the number of reboots you attempted, sometimes 'fix mbr' works.

:bong:

[3Ring Binder]

Coco,

I don't see where anyone's asked... did you do some driver updates recently?

Where are you in this process now? Any progress?

[Mulch]

bams, her computer works for $80 when it was previously bricked

i would not be suspicious at all, the price was right and most importantly, her computer works again

however, like you, i would be curious as to what she was infected with... but the bottom line is they got it working for less than a diagnosis at geek squad, so i would be more inclined to be less suspicious and more grateful, in my opinion

[Lain (is Bams)]

Primary concern here is that the shop has no idea what they're doing. Maybe they used HDD Regen, or some other lame ass 'repair' tool like that on an otherwise dead drive. Sometimes those things work for months or even a year, other times the drive fails again quite soon.

So is it good she paid $80 and might still have a bad HDD or motherboard? Is it wrong to question the people who told her something that sounds so incredulous as to be suspect? Now they want her business on another computer? Maybe the $80 is a leader loss to get her business.... or maybe they have no idea what they're doing and it's just duct tape until it blows up.

If she trusts them because she thinks they know what they're doing, she's more apt to buy a unit form them when it;'s time to get a new puter, instead of the internet or Cocso.

I know how retail shops work, I have to interact with them on a regular basis. More often than not, they have no clue. I mean.... ROOT VIRUS? Come the fuck on.

But piss money into a hole if you like... not my deal. Sorry I gave my opinion again, I'll have to stop doing that. Christ.



:bong:

[Shagazm]

Fantabulous! Now stop downloading pornography!

[Uncle Fester]

Bams go smoke a bowl come back and read what your saying again.

She got the virus because her av failed to catch it.

Sometimes shit happens.

Im with ya tho on finding out what it was.

I dont call bs on what they did. But as stated earlier knowing what it was will help figure out where it came from and what it was suppose to do.
eta: also coco has never claimed to be pc savvy so maybe shes mis-speaking at what it was.

[Mulch]

Primary concern here is that the shop has no idea what they're doing. Maybe they used HDD Regen, or some other lame ass 'repair' tool like that on an otherwise dead drive. Sometimes those things work for months or even a year, other times the drive fails again quite soon.

So is it good she paid $80 and might still have a bad HDD or motherboard? Is it wrong to question the people who told her something that sounds so incredulous as to be suspect? Now they want her business on another computer? Maybe the $80 is a leader loss to get her business.... or maybe they have no idea what they're doing and it's just duct tape until it blows up.

If she trusts them because she thinks they know what they're doing, she's more apt to buy a unit form them when it;'s time to get a new puter, instead of the internet or Cocso.

I know how retail shops work, I have to interact with them on a regular basis. More often than not, they have no clue. I mean.... ROOT VIRUS? Come the fuck on.

But piss money into a hole if you like... not my deal. Sorry I gave my opinion again, I'll have to stop doing that. Christ.



:bong:

you know, fuck off with your sensitivity to those that dont 100% agree with you or have opinions that differ from you

it is lamer than me being an asshole because while you may be right, :coco: now has the opportunity to back up her important data for only $80 where it might never have been seen again if she went to the geek squad; what the fuck did you do to help her get her computer working again that allows you to assign motives to those that actually DID SOMETHING that helped her?

and if they get her old computer working for her for $80 and she is happy to spend that amount, what the fuck is it to you (even if the reality is that you may be right with your observation)?

they didnt ask her to bring her old computer in from what i have seen, she decided she trusts them enough to do a good job on her old machine and is happy to volunteer it, and again, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO FOR :coco: for less than $80 that got either of her computers working? answer that unless you can't because you did NOTHING.

seriously, fuck off and grow the fuck up, you may be 100% correct about everything you said, but the important thing is that she is able to now backup her data even if more substantial problems could render the computer useless down the line; the data is what was important to her, not the actual machine and she now has access to it... HOW is this a bad thing and could you have done it for cheaper if you bothered to try to help her?

so if you are going to be that sensitive and lash out against me for having a differing opinion than you every time that i do, i will now thread stalk you and MAKE IT A POINT to disagree with you for fun (even if i am wrong), since you obviously take yourself that seriously

i thought you were cool and have defended you in the past, but if you think me being an asshole grows tiresome, how old, lame and pathetic is being maligned for the mortal sin of disagreeing with you to me

so now, it will be a pastime, a way to have fun, disagree with you on matters of opinion ONLY and watch you get twisted and talk shit, because you obviously are craving a reason to talk shit

i will give it to you, if that is what you want

hope you enjoy it and it makes :sc: a better experience for you

knock off the overt bitchiness towards me for my "crime" of not always sharing opinions with you, or be prepared for me to have a differing opinion from you even if in reality i agree with you, just for my own personal lulz at your expense

just fucking stop and respectfully disagree instead of martyrring yourself because you are the all wise expert who is ignored by the idiotic ignorant masses (or , as it seems lately, just me)

:mulch:

[Bunnie]

Wow.

[Lain (is Bams)]

Ok whatever.

So here's how this goes....


Coco gets some possibly bad advice, and maybe ripped off, I tell her to watch her ass.... you tell me I'm a cunt.

Yeah fuck you Mulch you're such a fucking baby.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

I've spent more of my personal time assisting in the resolution of the problems people have with their tech than any other community I've ever participated in. Countless posts about people's tech issues that I've spent time trying to troubleshoot with no information over the internet. So you can go fuck yourself in the asshole Mulch.

I posted in this thread repeatedly but no one ever listens, because you're always running around behind me with your bullshit. I don't recall you having a career in the tech industry? But you certainly stomp around here like you know something about everything. You constantly give me shit about my opinions and I could really give a fuck about yours.

So I'll just excuse myself from the tech discussions, and you can take it over, since you're obviously the end all be all of computing.

While I'm glad she can get her data, like I said, I was pointing out that she might be getting ripped off. I MISTAKENLY THOUGHT SHE MIGHT CARE ABOUT THAT. BUT WHAT DO I KNOW? YOU'RE THE SMARTEST GUY ON THE INTERNETZ.

Fucking retarded, whining ass baby.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

Bams go smoke a bowl come back and read what your saying again.

She got the virus because her av failed to catch it.

Sometimes shit happens.

Im with ya tho on finding out what it was.

I dont call bs on what they did. But as stated earlier knowing what it was will help figure out where it came from and what it was suppose to do.
eta: also coco has never claimed to be pc savvy so maybe shes mis-speaking at what it was.

I know all of you stupid bastards in this thread railing against me think you konw everything about computers and viruses.... but do you have any idea how RARE a 'BOOT BLOCK' virus is. Because there's NO SUCH THING AS A 'ROOT VIRUS'. That's a MADE UP TERM.

DUE TO THE MADE UP TERMS her techs are using.... I thought it was PRUDENT TO QUESTION THE SOURCE..... which was a FAIR AND REASONABLE QUESTION.

I FORGOT YOU AND MULCH TOGETHER KNOW THE COMPLETE TOTALITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND I FAILED TO TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION. My bad.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

BOOT SECTOR VIRUSES (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_sector#Boot_sector_viruses)

Boot sector viruses

Since code in the boot sector is executed automatically, boot sectors have historically been a common attack vector for computer viruses. To combat this behavior, the BIOS often includes an option to prevent writing to the boot sectors of attached hard drives.

Which means that modern machines deal with boot sector viruses in the BIOS, so it's VERY DIFFICULT for her to have contracted one.

The closest thing to a 'ROOT VIRUS' would be the following....

ROOT KIT VIRUSES (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rootkit)

Rootkit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A rootkit is software that enables continued privileged access to a computer, while actively hiding its presence from administrators by subverting standard operating system functionality or other applications. Typically, a hacker installs a rootkit on a computer after first obtaining user-level access, either by exploiting a known vulnerability or cracking a password. Once a rootkit is installed, it allows an attacker to mask his intrusion while gaining root or privileged access to the computer. Although rootkits can serve a variety of ends, they have gained notoriety primarily as malware, appropriating computing resources or stealing passwords without the knowledge of the administrators or users of affected systems. Rootkits can target firmware, a hypervisor, the kernel or most commonly, user-mode applications.

As you will note, ROOTKIT viruses do not stop the HDD from functioning, and would not throw a HARD ERROR as defined in Dell's service manual for desktop repair technicians.

Thanks, and have a nice fucking day.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

I guess I should stop answering all of the PMs and emails from people here as well, since I'm such a fucking useless, heartless cunt who never helps anyone with anything. I'll nevermind the few hundred emails from people, including YOU where I helped you with problems surrounding Kita's computer.

You have a big ole batch of nerve to come in here and spew your vile bullshit in my direction. I used to think you were cool but just kind of a prick, now I realize you're just a whining baby.

:mofic:

:bong:

[Mulch]

Ok whatever.

So here's how this goes....


Coco gets some possibly bad advice, and maybe ripped off, I tell her to watch her ass.... you tell me I'm a cunt.

Yeah fuck you Mulch you're such a fucking baby.

:bong:

i disagree

$80 is not "ripped off" if she is able to retrieve her data and back it up

down the line, it may be bad advice if preserving a 4 year old windows desktop is the goal, but protecting her data seems to be her main concern and it was done at a fair price IMHO,

again, if my opinion leads you to get butthurt because i dont bow to the all knowing all seeing expert of the world ACCORDING TO MY OPINION, and you decide to lash out at me for not subscribing 100% to your philosophy, bring it on

her data was important to her and $80 seems like a fair price

could you have provided better service and results for less than $80 (please include shipping and insurance both ways in your estimate, not just your time)

if you could have done better and cheaper, you should have offered your services sooner

if not, than stfu

the old adage, put up or shut up

offer her a better deal if you can if you are so concerned, otherwise you are simply playing armchair expert after the fact and offering no advice that would save her time, money, or hardware and not delivering her data back to her while talking shit to me for saying "wow, $80 is a fair price so you can access and back up your data"

i will admit you may be correct in some or all of your warnings/observations, but unless you can offer a better and cheaper solution yourself, dont talk shit to those of us who see the primary goal of :coco: protecting her data and getting it done at a fair price

[Mulch]

I don't recall you having a career in the tech industry?

perhaps you didnt pay enough attention or were too stoned to notice, then

that would be your problem then, not mine, wouldnt it?

[Lain (is Bams)]

I was gonna quote and parse but here's the gist....

I never said $80 was a rip off, if they actually performed the service they charged her for. I balked at the phrase 'ROOT VIRUS' for 2 GLARING reasons...

1) any second rate tech knows there is no such thing as a 'root virus'
2) whatever was wrong with it was probably never actually determined

This means that it might be fixed, but it might not. All I was saying is that she should question the expertise of the people she's giving her money too, before trusting them so completely.

If you went into the doctor's office, and he said.... bend over I need to check your brown hole thingie.... wouldn't you be like... WTF is he talking about?

But it's because she has no idea about viruses and their categories, their vectors and their prevention that he can say whatever he wants and she nods and pays the bill.

THATS A CRIME DOOD. FUCK man get a grip. I wasn't saying she should freak out and go postal... just to use caution before commiting more money to these people, who obviously are not that versed in what they are doing.

That's why I asked for the report, so I could clarify and maybe elaborate for her.

This is what I DO FOR A LIVING. I BREATHE THIS SHIT. When someone says 'ROOT VIRUS' my brain goes :gaah:

If that pisses you off, I'm sorry. I wasn't being a cunt, I was trying to help her out. The way I help everyone out on here, including you and Kita. By giving the most brutally honest advice I can give. Because that's the only advice worth giving man.

:bong:

[Mulch]

I know all of you stupid bastards in this thread

can you name the individual "stupid bastards in this thread" that you are referring to or should i cull a list of those involved in this thread and present them as those you are referring to for you based solely on thier participation?

I FORGOT YOU AND MULCH TOGETHER KNOW THE COMPLETE TOTALITY OF TECHNOLOGY AND I FAILED TO TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION.

since you are apparently oblivious to the fact that fester and i have been vehemently disagreeing to the point of personal insults on various topics for weeks now, would this be a bad time to note that a conspiracy of him and i against you is highly unlikely?

[Lain (is Bams)]

perhaps you didnt pay enough attention or were too stoned to notice, then

that would be your problem then, not mine, wouldnt it?

You're career in the AV field is in no way comparable to what I do and you know it. SO if you wanna make out like you can match wits with me on tech you're on losing ground. You know that, so let's leave it be and no go there.

I don't have a problem with you posting about my opinion. But for you to act like I"m a fucking bitch for trying to make sure CoCo wasn't getting jammed by some con artist is fucking stupid. You're acting like a big fucking baby.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

can you name the individual "stupid bastards in this thread" that you are referring to or should i cull a list of those involved in this thread and present them as those you are referring to for you based solely on thier participation?



since you are apparently oblivious to the fact that fester and i have been vehemently disagreeing to the point of personal insults on various topics for weeks now, would this be a bad time to note that a conspiracy of him and i against you is highly unlikely?

I'd have to go back and check so far it seems to just be the two of you. And I never said there was a conspiracy, I asked if between the two of you you knew everything about tech? Because you certainly act like you do.

He's always in my tech threads spouting his half-ass bullshit that he read on How-to-Geek or Lifehacker, or whatever lame ass blog he's watching this week so he can come in here and try to lance with me about things he has no clue about.

He's mostly entertaining and that's all good, but we need to understand he's just a clown, and noise for the background. At least you seem to have a good clue most of the time, until you're little head pops like a cork and you jump over the side of the deep end.

:bong:

[Mulch]

I guess I should stop answering all of the PMs and emails from people here as well, since I'm such a fucking useless, heartless cunt who never helps anyone with anything. I'll nevermind the few hundred emails from people, including YOU where I helped you with problems surrounding Kita's computer.

You have a big ole batch of nerve to come in here and spew your vile bullshit in my direction. I used to think you were cool but just kind of a prick, now I realize you're just a whining baby.

:mofic:

:bong:

so, while i have publicly stated that "you may very well be correct" in this very thread, but have said $80 was a fair price to providing :coco: with access to her data so that she can back it up, and you yourself can't/won't say you could provide access to her data for the same price or less when asked directly by me, that you should tell everyone to fuck off and stop helping them and that i am a "whining baby" for pointing out your "all talk, no action, no solution" philosophy?

is this a fair and correct summary of what has transpired in this thread so far?

[Lain (is Bams)]

so, while i have publicly stated that "you may very well be correct" in this very thread, but have said $80 was a fair price to providing :coco: with access to her data so that she can back it up, and you yourself can't/won't say you could provide access to her data for the same price or less when asked directly by me, that you should tell everyone to fuck off and stop helping them and that i am a "whining baby" for pointing out your "all talk, no action, no solution" philosophy?

is this a fair and correct summary of what has transpired in this thread so far?

If I was sitting within arms reach of her machine, I would have done it for free.

If Coco had emailed me like I asked her to in the PM I sent, I could have told her how to use a Linux live CD to boot her machine so I could access it remotely and help her that way... as I've done for a few others in the past. But I never got an answer.

Did you offer to help CoCo over the internet with her computer diagnosis for free via your internet connection? I don't recall. Anyhow...

If anyone bothered to go back and read my past posts, where I spent countless hours covering these issues.... they could easily find the posts I've made about using Linux boot CDs to recover data and fix them for free.

We had several people in this very thread trying their hardest to communicate with Coco about technical things, which she admittedly isn't as up to speed as she'd like to be.

So.... to be clear.... this is what happened...


CoCo came into the thread to post about something that might be fraud
I said... wtf you should watch your ass
You say... what a fucking bitch why cant you shut up and be happy
I say WTF do you mean I ws trying to help
You say I'm a fucking bitch because I wont fly to Coco and repair her shit for $80


That about wraps it up.

:bong:

[Mulch]

read my long post about using a live linux cd (puppy and ubuntu mentioned by name) in this thread to help her access her data

i didnt call you a bitch

things went south when you responded to me with

Sorry I gave my opinion again, I'll have to stop doing that. Christ.

we arent giving different advice, if you bother to read the thread

but you now seem to have it in for me, and are making it clear and obvious even IF we are giving the same advice and agreeing on things

so i am just saying, if this pattern continues, dont cry if i respond in a way that pisses you off, even if i have to intentionally be incorrect to acomplish that

i dont really respond to people attacking me for no apparent reason except by giving what i get

[Lain (is Bams)]

read my long post about using a live linux cd (puppy and ubuntu mentioned by name) in this thread to help her access her data

i didnt call you a bitch

things went south when you responded to me with



we arent giving different advice, if you bother to read the thread

but you now seem to have it in for me, and are making it clear and obvious even IF we are giving the same advice and agreeing on things

so i am just saying, if this pattern continues, dont cry if i respond in a way that pisses you off, even if i have to intentionally be incorrect to acomplish that

i dont really respond to people attacking me for no apparent reason except by giving what i get


Look Mulch, maybe you never said I was a bitch, but you're in here railing at me because I brought up the fact she might have been ripped off. Where's the.... thanks Bams for pointing out the tech who worked on my machine might be a complete idiot? Seriously.

You totally lost your fucking mind and went off on some lame ass tangent that has nothing to do with what I was talking about. YOU EVEN SAID YOURSELF I MIGHT BE RIGHT SO WTF IS YOUR GODDAMN PROBLEM?

I also noticed you sidestepped your other nonsense once you realized you were an ass because I tried to help CoCo but she doesn't like me and I didn't figure she'd trust me. But I offered nonetheless, and was ignored.

There's nothing I can do for people who ignore my advice. And, not to sound like a fucking bitch, but how many times can I post the same 10 things repeatedly. I can't remember how many times both you and I have posted about the SAME FUCKING THING.

Maybe we need a tech thread where we post FAQs and general help info? Just because I didn't have the time on this go around to sit at my machine and do a minute by minute analysis of Coco's machine doesn't mean I don't care and it doesn't mean I don't want to help.

That really hurt my feelings Mulch.... I contribute alot to this board in that regard, both in public and behind the scenes and I think your remark about my lack of concern was completely over the line.

:bong:L

[Uncle Fester]

He's always in my tech threads spouting his half-ass bullshit that he read on How-to-Geek or Lifehacker, or whatever lame ass blog he's watching this week so he can come in here and try to lance with me about things he has no clue about.

He's mostly entertaining and that's all good, but we need to understand he's just a clown, and noise for the background. At least you seem to have a good clue most of the time, until you're little head pops like a cork and you jump over the side of the deep end.

:bong:
I wonder how amusing I would be knocking on your door and when you answered i dick slapped you?

Look Bams you really need to get off your box and stop thinking you know every fucking thing. Seriously I give a fuck less if you work in the industry or not. I trust the things you say when asked and if that isnt enough for you to grasp I respect your knowledge, but refuse to accept everything you say as the gospel truth of everything.

We dont subscribe to the same view point on things and you let that hinder the ability to accept my views. Im guilty of that also. But goddamn if I dont agree you will rail me and blah blah blah.

I know more about things than you give me credit. Sometimes I choose to just troll you, wait most of the time. Just because I know for a fact you will respond in a predicted nature. If I really wanted to debate with you I would do exactly as you do 80% of the time and google the shit.

When you grow up and realize this goddamn problem you have with older people will only hinder your life you will be so much better of a person. But right now 75% of the time you remind me of goddamn Josh, before he realized the world had different views then what he thought was right.

Now to address your shitheaded response to my telling you to smoke a bowl. IF YOUR STUPID HEMORRHOID BITCH ASS WOULD READ MORE THAN THE FIRST SENTENCE YOU COULD SEE I SAID MAYBE COCO MIS SPOKE ON WHAT THEY SAID.

You also said that those programs do nothing until you get the virus, but your av should catch it. Well apparently something "according to the shiesters" got past her av. Hell I have had it happen on my old machine and it would cause firefox to crash and burn. The people at irc for mozilla told me what to do and even helped me figure it out. Not everything is caught by your av. YOU should know that.

[Bunnie]

I wonder how amusing I would be knocking on your door and when you answered i dick slapped you?




:fyou:


Typical, thinking all a gal needs is some dick. :thumbsup:

[Lain (is Bams)]

I wonder how amusing I would be knocking on your door and when you answered i dick slapped you?


I'll let you know right now, so there's no ambiguity.... if you show up at my front door, you're going home with your dick in a small box. Don't you EVER fucking threaten me you tiny pricked little pile of shit. I won't tolerate you're idle horseplay. If you even so much as hint that you are attempting to stalk me, I will destroy your life in ways you can only begin to have nightmares about.

This bullshit here should get your ass cornfielded for being a fucking prick.


Look Bams you really need to get off your box and stop thinking you know every fucking thing. Seriously I give a fuck less if you work in the industry or not. I trust the things you say when asked and if that isnt enough for you to grasp I respect your knowledge, but refuse to accept everything you say as the gospel truth of everything.


I could care less what you accept, just save your nonsense for other places and stop interjecting your non-facts as if they trumped my actual facts.


We dont subscribe to the same view point on things and you let that hinder the ability to accept my views. Im guilty of that also. But goddamn if I dont agree you will rail me and blah blah blah.

I only reject your views when they're wrong. SO far your batting average is poor. That's not my fault. I'm not going to pat you on the head and say you're right when you're most obviously deluded.


I know more about things than you give me credit. Sometimes I choose to just troll you, wait most of the time. Just because I know for a fact you will respond in a predicted nature. If I really wanted to debate with you I would do exactly as you do 80% of the time and google the shit.


Sweetie, I've forgotten more about computers than you'll ever learn in your life time. I provide Google links for those of you that lack the experience and technical training that I posses, and it helps make the points easier. At times I have trouble 'dumbing down' my tech speak for those less technically inclined, and Google provides a bridge.


When you grow up and realize this goddamn problem you have with older people will only hinder your life you will be so much better of a person. But right now 75% of the time you remind me of goddamn Josh, before he realized the world had different views then what he thought was right.


No one mentioned age here except you. I'm talking about facts. Technological facts. Certainties that have been proven and exist in the reality we all have come to recognize as valid.

You're above point is not only irrelevant, it's wrong.


Now to address your shitheaded response to my telling you to smoke a bowl. IF YOUR STUPID HEMORRHOID BITCH ASS WOULD READ MORE THAN THE FIRST SENTENCE YOU COULD SEE I SAID MAYBE COCO MIS SPOKE ON WHAT THEY SAID.

I don't need you telling me to smoke a bowl. And I read what you said, but you're WRONG. There is NO KNOWN BOOT VIRUS CODE IN THE WILD SINCE THE MID 1990's.

SO either the tech was lying about the fact that there was a virus, or she's infected with something that people don't get infected with, and haven't for more than a decade. So if he told her it was a virus he's more than likely MISTAKEN. You'd know that if you had any experience and/or training in the field of malware and virus tracking and damage mitigation.


You also said that those programs do nothing until you get the virus, but your av should catch it. Well apparently something "according to the shiesters" got past her av. Hell I have had it happen on my old machine and it would cause firefox to crash and burn. The people at irc for mozilla told me what to do and even helped me figure it out. Not everything is caught by your av. YOU should know that.

No... I said that ANTI-MALWARE and SPYWARE programs are USELESS because they will only ACTIVELY stop infections that you should ALREADY BE PATCHED AGAINST.... and if you are patched then you CAN'T GET THE INFECTION SO THERES NO NEED FOR THE MALWARE APP. LEARN TO FUCKING READ.

System BIOS (Basic Input Output Instructionset) in modern motherboards (and hers only being 4 years old qualifies, plus I reviewed the Dell bios firmware whitepaper for her machine and there's boot virus blocking built right in, just like all the rest) will stop boot block viruses 99% of the time, and I only say 99% on the off chance someone has written something recently I'm unaware of.

As such, it's practically IMPOSSIBLE for her machine to be infected with a rootkit or a boot block virus unless she updated her machine with INFECTED FIRMWARE CODE and I seriously doubt that went on.

Why don't you ask her and see what she says... betting $10 she says she didn't do one. So where's the entry point? All versions of Windows will ask you repeatedly before executing firmware update code so the chances it was inadvertent are almost null.

Null is a term meaning nothing or empty.

:bong:

[Uncle Fester]

:fyou:


Typical, thinking all a gal needs is some dick. :thumbsup:
No not typical thinking...didnt think she needed some dick.
But slapping her with a clit could prove to be harder than a dick..unless said clit was grossly over sized and well..nvm.:devil:

[Uncle Fester]

I'll let you know right now, so there's no ambiguity.... if you show up at my front door, you're going home with your dick in a small box. Don't you EVER fucking threaten me you tiny pricked little pile of shit. I won't tolerate you're idle horseplay. If you even so much as hint that you are attempting to stalk me, I will destroy your life in ways you can only begin to have nightmares about.

This bullshit here should get your ass cornfielded for being a fucking prick. Oh but I was just expressing my freedom of speech...I just asked a question dumbass.

I could care less what you accept, just save your nonsense for other places and stop interjecting your non-facts as if they trumped my actual facts. Again you seem to think you know everything there is about everything there is. When you accept you dont then I will shut up. I mean come the fuck on you where wrong about who owned t-mobile and was wrong on several otherthings. But you always say opps I forgot or whatever.

I only reject your views when they're wrong. SO far your batting average is poor. That's not my fault. I'm not going to pat you on the head and say you're right when you're most obviously deluded. I dont expect that. But again I will always be wrong in your eyes because you know so much more than me and you will never be wrong.

Sweetie, I've forgotten more about computers than you'll ever learn in your life time. I provide Google links for those of you that lack the experience and technical training that I posses, and it helps make the points easier. At times I have trouble 'dumbing down' my tech speak for those less technically inclined, and Google provides a bridge.

See thats the problem you forget so goddamn much that I sometimes wonder if you are full of shit. But when you are spot on Im glad I asked you. Pro tip sometimes not dumbing down will make it less obvious your are googling the shit because you dont know.

No one mentioned age here except you. I'm talking about facts. Technological facts. Certainties that have been proven and exist in the reality we all have come to recognize as valid.

You're above point is not only irrelevant, it's wrong.
You dont deny you have a problem with older people. Which in turn eludes to your problem with authority. That is the main issue for you is you cant handle not being in charge.



I don't need you telling me to smoke a bowl. And I read what you said, but you're WRONG. There is NO KNOWN BOOT VIRUS CODE IN THE WILD SINCE THE MID 1990's.

SO either the tech was lying about the fact that there was a virus, or she's infected with something that people don't get infected with, and haven't for more than a decade. So if he told her it was a virus he's more than likely MISTAKEN. You'd know that if you had any experience and/or training in the field of malware and virus tracking and damage mitigation.
It was a attempt for you to stop and realize coco might have misspoke in regards to what they told her.


No... I said that ANTI-MALWARE and SPYWARE programs are USELESS because they will only ACTIVELY stop infections that you should ALREADY BE PATCHED AGAINST.... and if you are patched then you CAN'T GET THE INFECTION SO THERES NO NEED FOR THE MALWARE APP. LEARN TO FUCKING READ.
Learn to read? How about learn to read your own fucking statements you hairy legged bitch. Here let me quote what I was talking about....


you're AV database will flag these just fine.

System BIOS (Basic Input Output Instructionset) in modern motherboards (and hers only being 4 years old qualifies, plus I reviewed the Dell bios firmware whitepaper for her machine and there's boot virus blocking built right in, just like all the rest) will stop boot block viruses 99% of the time, and I only say 99% on the off chance someone has written something recently I'm unaware of.

As such, it's practically IMPOSSIBLE for her machine to be infected with a rootkit or a boot block virus unless she updated her machine with INFECTED FIRMWARE CODE and I seriously doubt that went on. Im gonna assume you read the generic white sheet, because we never narrowed it down to which machine she has. That should be sufficiant and more than likely that is not something they would exclude to save money somewhere, but who knows.

Oh guess what I did search and read up on this. I understand it should be impossible to get infected with them, but as coco can attest we are talking about her..I mean she does have some fucked up luck ya know.

Why don't you ask her and see what she says... betting $10 she says she didn't do one. So where's the entry point? All versions of Windows will ask you repeatedly before executing firmware update code so the chances it was inadvertent are almost null.

Null is a term meaning nothing or empty.

:bong:This is hopefully true but anything is possible when you arent sure wtf your doing. Coco has said shes scared to death to mess with this and who knows maybe she seen some warning that said she needed to update this and it infected her computer. There are so many variable here that you are just brushing off because you assume shit.

[Bunnie]

:lmao2:

[Lain (is Bams)]

Oh but I was just expressing my freedom of speech...I just asked a question dumbass.


And I exercised mine by making it clear what will happen when you exercise your freedom to be stupid.


Again you seem to think you know everything there is about everything there is. When you accept you dont then I will shut up. I mean come the fuck on you where wrong about who owned t-mobile and was wrong on several otherthings. But you always say opps I forgot or whatever.


I know a great deal about this particular subject for sure. Others are hit and miss. I tend to stick with what I know, so maybe it seems as though I'm always saying I'm right, because when I'm not, I generally don't bother arguing. That's a lesson you haven't learned yet.



I dont expect that. But again I will always be wrong in your eyes because you know so much more than me and you will never be wrong.


Glad you see it for what it is.



See thats the problem you forget so goddamn much that I sometimes wonder if you are full of shit. But when you are spot on Im glad I asked you. Pro tip sometimes not dumbing down will make it less obvious your are googling the shit because you dont know.


Well everytime I start to get into the tech speak I generally lose most of my audience. But I'll do my best not to look 'too stupid' for you. :rolleyes:



You dont deny you have a problem with older people. Which in turn eludes to your problem with authority. That is the main issue for you is you cant handle not being in charge.


I didn't. I said it wasn't about age this time. Again, learn to read and stop putting in words that aren't there. It makes you look stupid.



It was a attempt for you to stop and realize coco might have misspoke in regards to what they told her.


They obviously told her it was a virus..... I'm sure she didnt' get that wrong.... and there's NO BOOT BLOCK VIRUSES OUT THERE JESUS MAN CATCH THE FUCK UP! So it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY it was a virus. DO YOU READ THIS CLEARLY? DO I NEED PICTURES?



Learn to read? How about learn to read your own fucking statements you hairy legged bitch. Here let me quote what I was talking about....


I actually found this funny.


Im gonna assume you read the generic white sheet, because we never narrowed it down to which machine she has. That should be sufficiant and more than likely that is not something they would exclude to save money somewhere, but who knows.


:facepalm: ALL MACHINES AFTER 1990something (mid 1990s) HAVE BOOT BLOCK VIRUS PREVENTION CODE BUILT INTO THEM. If you knew shit about tech you'd know that. Dell didn't make a firmware removing this feature just to suit your argument. Fuck off.


Oh guess what I did search and read up on this. I understand it should be impossible to get infected with them, but as coco can attest we are talking about her..I mean she does have some fucked up luck ya know.


I'm not gonna bother. Read the other 5 times I addressed this.



This is hopefully true but anything is possible when you arent sure wtf your doing. Coco has said shes scared to death to mess with this and who knows maybe she seen some warning that said she needed to update this and it infected her computer. There are so many variable here that you are just brushing off because you assume shit.

Yeah I said anything is possible and again, my only statements were that is was HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS BASED ON THE DESCRIPTION and even you, with your GoogleFu found that to be true.

So fuck off and have a nice night.

:hug:

:bong:

[Uncle Fester]

BUT BUT BUT IM RIGHT AND YOUR RONG
:hug:

:bong:
FIXED


Why dont you be a good girl and honor your world and hurry along and GFTO and stop worrying about these threads. I mean nobody ever listens to you. All your knowledge and expertise are wasted away because everybody ignores your suggestions.


God I love this. You respond to the trolling. I even admitted to it in a earlier post. I could give two shits less if your right or wrong. What bothers me is that you are to stuck on the fact you THINK you are so much smarter than everybody else that you cant see people trolling you. I mean come on bitch you have to know this.

Just so you know. And there isnt any confusion here. I wouldnt grace you with my presence, so there is no worry in my driving to your lil house on the prairie. I was being a smart ass and providing some background noise for you.

[Lain (is Bams)]

[SIZE=1]
God I love this. You respond to the trolling. I even admitted to it in a earlier post. I could give two shits less if your right or wrong. What bothers me is that you are to stuck on the fact you THINK you are so much smarter than everybody else that you cant see people trolling you. I mean come on bitch you have to know this.


I love how your nonsense 'facts' and 'superior knowledge' become 'intentional trolling' when you can't get your way and have me bow down to your expert Google skills.

First you were all about how I was wrong and you were right, and now you're telling me it was all an intentional act of trolling. Which is it? Maybe it's nothing to do with intelligence and I have just misdiagnosed your particular level of crazy. I'll get back to you on that.

Also, calling me a bitch isn't going to ruffle my feathers, if that's the point. You'll have to get out your dirty words book and find something edgier.


Just so you know. And there isnt any confusion here. I wouldnt grace you with my presence, so there is no worry in my driving to your lil house on the prairie. I was being a smart ass and providing some background noise for you.


No, you were trying to be all badass and edgy like Mulch, but you failed six levels from up. I was merely laying the ground rules in case you decided to take your crazy to the next level.

I wish I had a little house on the prairie, hopefully soon. Bunnie and I want to be sunk in and ready to ride out the end of the world in plenty of time to be tucked in our shelter. :P

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

Hey Fester, while I was trolling around the Internet, I found this......

http://www.alwayshappyhour.com/images/productimgs/apparel/AA-hatkeystonelight.jpg

I thought it might give you an idea of things you could do with your old keystone boxes. No thanks needed, happy to help out.

:bong:

ETA: Hey man you should totally get one of these if you don't have one. Keeps your keystone nice and fresh while you pound em on game day!

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_gZI4lorcp-Y/SeJsZS5uY_I/AAAAAAAAAEM/KmV-2vLmM5A/s400/Capture.JPG

[Uncle Fester]

No, you were trying to be all badass and edgy like Mulch, but you failed six levels from up. I was merely laying the ground rules in case you decided to take your crazy to the next level.


:bong:
Actually you are still wrong on so many levels. You will never understand it.

I was being a smartass. Simple. If you knew me like you claim to know me and my intentions you wouldnt be so far from the truth.

As for trolling you...can you read?
Im being serious here. Can you or do you rely on tts to read this out to you? Here let me quote myself from earlier in this thread.


I know more about things than you give me credit. Sometimes I choose to just troll you, wait most of the time

Oh and since we are on the subject of stating how your facts are always right and mine arent...Ill bring up something I know for a fact is a bunch of bullshit. Even tho its in another thread it is relevant.

Indeed. I have a 2m, 10m and 11m rig my brother gave me for my car. I like my RCI2970, (3-300watt) and covers some ungodly amount of channels.
First off the rci2970 better know as a ranger 2970 is a 10 or 12 meter band rig. If you are using it as a 11 meter rig then it will not function properly on the 10 and 12 meter bands. It will still hit those frequencies but you have modified it to work on the 11 meter band and it now goes higher in coverage than its suppose to. Second its 1-50 watts am and 1-100ssb and cw. There is no stock built rig that will do 300watts on 10 or 12 meters. I dont doubt you own this but you are so misinformed of what it is and what its capabilities are that I laugh at you. But still what baffles me is how the fuck can you access 2meter on this radio?

This is a area I guarantee I have forgot more than you will ever know. As cb radio and ham operators are something that arent as popular as they were when I was your age and younger. Now people just laugh and say I can call anywhere in the world on my iphone or droid. They dont understand the accomplishments of sending a 4 watt signal thousands of miles away.

Now go and google this and not respond like I know you are going to do. Seeing as how you where so confident in announcing you owned this radio.

[Uncle Fester]

Oh and you can take your keithstone beer and pour it out. I prefer beer that isnt horse piss.

[Lain (is Bams)]

Ok. Well actually I hate to pop your balloon, but if you replace the J jumper on the mainboard of the 2970 which allows you to convert it form 10 meter to 11 meter with a switch that lets you toggle it back and forth, it most certainly will cover all of those bands.... 10,11 and 12 meter.

What's funny is that you are such a fucking jerk as to assume that my brother didn't modify the radio for me, and I never said it was a stock unit. So you look like a real fucking asshole right now.

Just saying. Now you go Google about the Ranger radio, and let me know what you find.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Blah don't use this and you should uninstall it. Anti-Malware apps are USELESS for prohibiting infections and only serve to REMOVE them IF and WHEN you become infected. It's not worth the resource overhead an possible system contamination to use these tools. You're not concerned about past malware infections who's security holes have been patched, you're AV database will flag these just fine.

Adaware, SpyBot, etc.... all SHIT. Not like anyone ever listens to me, but at least I fucking warned you.



I wouldn't do this until you're sure they actually know what they're doing. The 'fix' on your other machine sounds flakey. I'm guessing someone got frustrated and in a fit of desperation used the 'fix mbr' tool. Sounds like more than likely you're boot block was corrupt, I doubt it was virus related. Depending on the number of reboots you attempted, sometimes 'fix mbr' works.

:bong:

What is a "fix mbr" tool?

[Cocoanut Koala]

If you can change a light bulb and use a screw driver.
You can assemble a computer.


I taught my daughter to do it.

Change a light bulb with a screwdriver? Hey, even I know not to do that! I don't wanna die! ;)

[Cocoanut Koala]

WHAT? I cry bullshit. Do they even know what a 'root' virus is. First of all, they're called 'BOOT BLOCK' viruses because their code resides in the 'BOOT BLOCK' of the hard drive.

Secondarily, these infections are so rare that I find it highly suspicious there was such a thing on your machine. Did they provide you with a report from their diagnosis? I'd be interested to see the name of this alleged 'root' virus as well as their method for determining it's source.

You are legally entitled to those reports just as you are with an auto-shop.

Glad you got it fixed, $79 isn't very expensive and you got off cheap, but I'm still very suspicious of the cause. I think either 1) they are guessing because they can't figure out the problem, you told them you didnt wanna sink alot of money into it, and they figured they could get $80 for it.... or 2) you actually have a 'boot block' virus and I'd be interested in the information, because there are very limited attack vectors for 'boot block' viruses now and I feel the need to know. :D

:bong:
:bong:

Maybe they said "boot block" and I just thought they said "root." (It was over the phone.)

I never said I didn't want to sink a lot of money into it, though. Also, this price and their attitude were consistent with the "honest" and "care about customers" and "fixed it quickly" reviews on the web.

So I would go with (2), that I misheard, and it was actually a "boot block" virus.

(But I think he said root.)

[Lain (is Bams)]

What is a "fix mbr" tool?

There are many. A fix mbr tool repairs broken or corrupt Master Boot Record files on your hard disc drive.

The Master Boot Record contains all of the information your operating system uses to boot the machine when it's handed off from the POST process and the BIOS has checked the hardware and loaded the boot sector.

If this information is corrupt or damaged, it can be repaired depending on the type of OS and the condition of the drive and it's MBR sector.

Usually these tools are a patch that keeps the drive operating for a minimal amount of time while you fetch data and then scrap the drive. It should in no way be trusted at this point.

IF it was a 'BOOT VIRUS' then you shouldn't trust the drive unless it's been completely wiped using an appropriate DoD level tool to ensure all traces of the virus have been removed. This should be done after you've copied off the data.

If the drive is in any way failing, this process will no doubt kill it entirely.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Blah don't use this and you should uninstall it. Anti-Malware apps are USELESS for prohibiting infections and only serve to REMOVE them IF and WHEN you become infected. It's not worth the resource overhead an possible system contamination to use these tools. You're not concerned about past malware infections who's security holes have been patched, you're AV database will flag these just fine.

Adaware, SpyBot, etc.... all SHIT. Not like anyone ever listens to me, but at least I fucking warned you.

:bong:

What do you advise using?

P.S. I wonder how I got a spam avatar.

[Cocoanut Koala]

Coco,

I don't see where anyone's asked... did you do some driver updates recently?

Where are you in this process now? Any progress?

I don't think I have. And where I am in this process is, they fixed it.

[Lain (is Bams)]

Maybe they said "boot block" and I just thought they said "root." (It was over the phone.)

I never said I didn't want to sink a lot of money into it, though. Also, this price and their attitude were consistent with the "honest" and "care about customers" and "fixed it quickly" reviews on the web.

So I would go with (2), that I misheard, and it was actually a "boot block" virus.

(But I think he said root.)

TBH, Boot Block viruses have been 'extinct' since the mid 90's and were usually passed about on floppy discs. The chances that you were impacted by such a virus are minimal at best. You'd have a better chance standing outside in a rain storm and being struck by lightning than contracting a boot virus based on your description of how you utilize your machine.

It's possible that he didn't understand what corrupted it, alot of times they will simply call it a virus because it resolves issues fast and as long as it works you could care less most of the time.

Why it's crucial to know is to find out if the drive was cleaned properly, which is why I asked about their method of detection and removal. There are very few shops that understand these viruses because of their rarity.

If they used any type of automated tool, then they have a report attached to your paperwork (or should) and you are entitled to a copy. Otherwise, the technician is required (generally) to outline their basic process and the tools they used to arrive at their diagnosis. These are critical in determining if you are getting accurate information.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Primary concern here is that the shop has no idea what they're doing. Maybe they used HDD Regen, or some other lame ass 'repair' tool like that on an otherwise dead drive. Sometimes those things work for months or even a year, other times the drive fails again quite soon.

So is it good she paid $80 and might still have a bad HDD or motherboard? Is it wrong to question the people who told her something that sounds so incredulous as to be suspect? Now they want her business on another computer? Maybe the $80 is a leader loss to get her business.... or maybe they have no idea what they're doing and it's just duct tape until it blows up.

If she trusts them because she thinks they know what they're doing, she's more apt to buy a unit form them when it;'s time to get a new puter, instead of the internet or Cocso.

I know how retail shops work, I have to interact with them on a regular basis. More often than not, they have no clue. I mean.... ROOT VIRUS? Come the fuck on.

But piss money into a hole if you like... not my deal. Sorry I gave my opinion again, I'll have to stop doing that. Christ.



:bong:

Well, they didn't want my business on another computer. That is, they didn't bring it up or anything. I just mentioned bringing it in and they said fine.

I know the 79 isn't a loss leader to get my business, on account of they list the prices for the services on their web site, and this is the one listed for ... getting rid of the virus or whatever they did.

I was surprised, too, that this was all it took to get the thing going again. My husband also cautions that we wait and see how well this fix holds before bringing in the other computer. But I am anxious to get that other computer in there, because you know how it FEELS! . . . how it feels when the dang thing is so slow and you just can't WAIT to get it fixed.

It's like, almost an obsessive-compulsive thing. Made more so by the fact that I haven't succeeded in cleaning it up myself (and just downloading any program that might work takes 24 hours).

[Lain (is Bams)]

What do you advise using?

P.S. I wonder how I got a spam avatar.

I am personally using and recommending Comodo Internet Security (http://www.comodo.com/home/internet-security/free-internet-security.php). It is an Anti-virus product and has an optional firewall if you feel you need that level of protection. It also has built in sandboxing and malware protection which are awesome tools.

Best of all it's free. If you have Comodo, and are using Firefox w NoScript, or Chrome, then you have relatively nothing to be concerned about.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Bams go smoke a bowl come back and read what your saying again.

She got the virus because her av failed to catch it.

Sometimes shit happens.

Im with ya tho on finding out what it was.

I dont call bs on what they did. But as stated earlier knowing what it was will help figure out where it came from and what it was suppose to do.
eta: also coco has never claimed to be pc savvy so maybe shes mis-speaking at what it was.

What's odd is out of everyone I know, I am MOST savvy. (With the possible exception of the son-in-law.) This, you realize, makes all you guys SUPER savvy.

[Cocoanut Koala]

you know, fuck off with your sensitivity to those that dont 100% agree with you or have opinions that differ from you

it is lamer than me being an asshole because while you may be right, :coco: now has the opportunity to back up her important data for only $80 where it might never have been seen again if she went to the geek squad

Which smatter fack is my next order of business. I think what you said about the online thing (in case of house fire, etc.) may be worth the money. Not because I expect a fire, but because I have heard that they do it automatically.

One of my issues with backing up things on a hard drive is remembering what I have already backed up and what I haven't. (As well as dragging it out, hooking it up, etc.)

[Lain (is Bams)]

Well, they didn't want my business on another computer. That is, they didn't bring it up or anything. I just mentioned bringing it in and they said fine.

I know the 79 isn't a loss leader to get my business, on account of they list the prices for the services on their web site, and this is the one listed for ... getting rid of the virus or whatever they did.

I was surprised, too, that this was all it took to get the thing going again. My husband also cautions that we wait and see how well this fix holds before bringing in the other computer. But I am anxious to get that other computer in there, because you know how it FEELS! . . . how it feels when the dang thing is so slow and you just can't WAIT to get it fixed.

It's like, almost an obsessive-compulsive thing. Made more so by the fact that I haven't succeeded in cleaning it up myself (and just downloading any program that might work takes 24 hours).

And really that's all I was saying was to be cautious. You're immediate language and the descriptions you gave do not mesh with the fix you describe. I wasn't insisting you were ripped off, only cautioning you to be careful, because the fact is that MOST shops are not qualified for the services they perform, and are run by 'garage techs' who aren't trained to diagnose and troubleshoot properly.

If I hadn't seen so many people ripped off, and cleaned up so many 'pc shop' messes, I wouldn't even be in here making a post about it. Unfortunately, PC techs tend to be shady because they can pull it off.... most people are clueless when the acronyms start flying.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Ok whatever.

So here's how this goes....


Coco gets some possibly bad advice, and maybe ripped off, I tell her to watch her ass.... you tell me I'm a cunt.

Yeah fuck you Mulch you're such a fucking baby.

:bong:

I don't think I'm ripped off. But I do appreciate your advice, and all of you guy's advice.

It's a good thing to get differing points of view, on this as on everything.

P.S. The bill just says, "OS Repair, Virus Removal".

[Lain (is Bams)]

First off the rci2970 better know as a ranger 2970 is a 10 or 12 meter band rig. If you are using it as a 11 meter rig then it will not function properly on the 10 and 12 meter bands. It will still hit those frequencies but you have modified it to work on the 11 meter band and it now goes higher in coverage than its suppose to. Second its 1-50 watts am and 1-100ssb and cw. There is no stock built rig that will do 300watts on 10 or 12 meters. I dont doubt you own this but you are so misinformed of what it is and what its capabilities are that I laugh at you. But still what baffles me is how the fuck can you access 2meter on this radio?



I just realized that when I said I had a 2m, 10 and 11m in the car you thought I meant I had a radio that does 2m, 10m, and 11m. But in reality, my ENGLISH sentence states that I have two radios, a 2m, and a 10/11m radio. The 2m is a standard Moto talkie, and doesn't work very well at all.

Additionally, once you're modified the RCI-2970, the power range varies from 3 to 300 watts on the internal amplifier depending on the TX frequency you're using and your SWR calibration. That's Signal to Watt ratio in case you needed a hand with that.

Currently, the Wilson 1000 silver coil whip works quite well across both 10 and 11m bands without making adjustments to the base, I'm in at 1.1 for the freq I like to talk on, which is 27.485AM/LSB. There's still lots of skip in the upper 40s at times.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

If I was sitting within arms reach of her machine, I would have done it for free.

I know you would have Bams, and I appreciate that.

(Mulch would have, too.)

If Coco had emailed me like I asked her to in the PM I sent, I could have told her how to use a Linux live CD to boot her machine so I could access it remotely and help her that way... as I've done for a few others in the past. But I never got an answer.

This would get beyond my level of comfort. I read all that Linux CD stuff, from you and others, and decided it was past what I felt easily able to do. (Plus I'd have to buy the CD, I figured.)

:coco:

[Lain (is Bams)]

I don't think I'm ripped off. But I do appreciate your advice, and all of you guy's advice.

It's a good thing to get differing points of view, on this as on everything.

P.S. The bill just says, "OS Repair, Virus Removal".

I'm glad you're happy. But still be cautious, you didn't have a virus stopping you from booting that machine. I would be willing to stake a decent amount of cash on that.

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

I also noticed you sidestepped your other nonsense once you realized you were an ass because I tried to help CoCo but she doesn't like me and I didn't figure she'd trust me. But I offered nonetheless, and was ignored.

Absolute nonsense.

It is true that I no longer like you. Because I said so a while back. But it was a while back, and therefore doesn't really stick with me.

More to the point, I KNOW YOU. I *know* for a pure-D FACT that you would not let the ill blood between us stop you from trying to help me with something you know about.

That is the professionalism in you coming out (along with probably innate kindness). You will attempt to help me, no matter that we have fought in the past.

Moreover, it is not true that I don't trust you. I trust you implicitly on this stuff. I trust that you will give me the best advice you can.

[Lain (is Bams)]

Absolute nonsense.

It is true that I no longer like you. Because I said so a while back. But it was a while back, and therefore doesn't really stick with me.

More to the point, I KNOW YOU. I *know* for a pure-D FACT that you would not let the ill blood between us stop you from trying to help me with something you know about.

That is the professionalism in you coming out (along with probably innate kindness). You will attempt to help me, no matter that we have fought in the past.

Moreover, it is not true that I don't trust you. I trust you implicitly on this stuff. I trust that you will give me the best advice you can.

Coco, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. :hug: :flowers: :hug:

[Cocoanut Koala]

I don't need you telling me to smoke a bowl. And I read what you said, but you're WRONG. There is NO KNOWN BOOT VIRUS CODE IN THE WILD SINCE THE MID 1990's.

I think he said root virus.

SO either the tech was lying about the fact that there was a virus, or she's infected with something that people don't get infected with, and haven't for more than a decade. So if he told her it was a virus he's more than likely MISTAKEN. You'd know that if you had any experience and/or training in the field of malware and virus tracking and damage mitigation.

But if that's true, how come it's fixed now?



No... I said that ANTI-MALWARE and SPYWARE programs are USELESS because they will only ACTIVELY stop infections that you should ALREADY BE PATCHED AGAINST.... and if you are patched then you CAN'T GET THE INFECTION SO THERES NO NEED FOR THE MALWARE APP. LEARN TO FUCKING READ.

System BIOS (Basic Input Output Instructionset) in modern motherboards (and hers only being 4 years old qualifies, plus I reviewed the Dell bios firmware whitepaper for her machine and there's boot virus blocking built right in, just like all the rest) will stop boot block viruses 99% of the time, and I only say 99% on the off chance someone has written something recently I'm unaware of.

As such, it's practically IMPOSSIBLE for her machine to be infected with a rootkit or a boot block virus unless she updated her machine with INFECTED FIRMWARE CODE and I seriously doubt that went on.

Why don't you ask her and see what she says... betting $10 she says she didn't do one. So where's the entry point? All versions of Windows will ask you repeatedly before executing firmware update code so the chances it was inadvertent are almost null.

Null is a term meaning nothing or empty.

:bong:

I don't know if I updated my machine with infected firmware code or not. I don't know what firmware code is. What is it?

[Lain (is Bams)]

But if that's true, how come it's fixed now?


It's possible (total speculation) your dell has some sort of built in protection against corrupt issues. It may have prevented the system from rebooting to stop you from overwriting the backup.

It's more likely that your drive is failing (most residential grade drives are expected to make it 2 years, with 3 being nice and 4 being rare) and it stopped the machine from booting. When they opened it, they no doubt reset the CMOS (standard) and then ran a usual battery of hardware diag tools.... if your drive is experiencing an intermittent failure, maybe it's working for now.

It's also plausible that your drive had bad soft sectors, and the tool wrote out the 'bad blocks' allowing the drive to function again. The only way to determine this would be to execute a block test or to view the drive's available space before and after the tool was run.

IT's also plausible that something was simply loose or needed reseated. Over time components become hot and cold and will work themselves loose, or otherwise gather dirt and corrosion. Unplugging and replugging system components is a common fix and will resolve alot of issues like the ones you described.

MBR has a backup that will be overwritten each time the system boots successfully. The 'fix mbr tools' will 'erase' the bad code and replace it with a copy of the most recent backup.

This will fix the issue assuming that the backup is good, and not a copy of the defunct code you're trying to access originally.

Windows is notorious for marring it's boot code and so it's not infeasible that it just happened, but it probably occured during a drive glitch, maybe a quick hiccup of the memory, anything like that can cause data corruption and it's usually impossible to backtrack.

Therefore, rather than just fucking say that, most techs will spew out something you can understand... like 'hey it has a virus'... 'oh a virus, great is it gone?'... 'yes'...'bitchin here's your $80'. There's nothing really WRONG with this except that you're not really getting to the root of the problem, which could possibly be a failing drive or bad memory/system components causing bad writebacks to your drive.


I don't know if I updated my machine with infected firmware code or not. I don't know what firmware code is. What is it?

Firmware is like if you went to Dell support and updated your BIOS code with a 'firmware flasher' tool. This is a very 'techy' thing to do and I find it unlikely you've done this without guidance of some sort, and you'd know what I was talking about if that were the case.

:bong:

[Uncle Fester]

Ok. Well actually I hate to pop your balloon, but if youes replace the J jumper on the mainboard of the 2970 which allows you to convert it form 10 meter to 11 meter with a switch that lets you toggle it back and forth, it most certainly will cover all of those bands.... 10,11 and 12 meter.

What's funny is that you are such a fucking jerk as to assume that my brother didn't modify the radio for me, and I never said it was a stock unit. So you look like a real fucking asshole right now.

Just saying. Now you go Google about the Ranger radio, and let me know what you find.

:bong:
Actually I was going to say it was q22 to mod it but that seems like the diode you cut to open the sound limiter. Also the mod youngest speak of requires the case to be opened and done inside. Not something you do just to use it as a cb when its your primary ham rig. Im not the one lookin like a asshole, you hold that. I said the rig was 10 and 12 meter and had to be converted to 11 meter and wouldnt operate properly on the intended freqencies. Btw in your google trip did you see the little bit of info regarding how the fcc banned these radios? Therefore any operator that doesn't want to risk losing his license wouldn't buy it. It was designed for export cb use in the us.
Bans if your pisses cause I thanked mulch, stop. That thank was because you acted like a unintellegent diva that nobody listens to. Has you read cocoa response to you age acknowledged you and said she was a noob.

Sorry to derail your thread coco im glad your pc is fixed. I just can't believe bams was such a bitch to me because I told her to smoke a bowl. I was just trying to get her to chill and calm down.



Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Lain (is Bams)]

Actually I was going to say it was q22 to mod it but that seems like the diode you cut to open the sound limiter. Also the mod youngest speak of requires the case to be opened and done inside. Not something you do just to use it as a cb when its your primary ham rig. Im not the one lookin like a asshole, you hold that. I said the rig was 10 and 12 meter and had to be converted to 11 meter and wouldnt operate properly on the intended freqencies. Btw in your google trip did you see the little bit of info regarding how the fcc banned these radios? Therefore any operator that doesn't want to risk losing his license wouldn't buy it. It was designed for export cb use in the us.
Bans if your pisses cause I thanked mulch, stop. That thank was because you acted like a unintellegent diva that nobody listens to. Has you read cocoa response to you age acknowledged you and said she was a noob.

Sorry to derail your thread coco im glad your pc is fixed. I just can't believe bams was such a bitch to me because I told her to smoke a bowl. I was just trying to get her to chill and calm down.



Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

So just to summarize.... you're argument is that I am wrong because you misunderstood and ASSUMED that I had an unmodified, box stock RCI-2970 mobile ham rig rather than asking me so we could have kicked around some radio chat because I rather enjoy radios, I find the whitenoise soothing.

I accept your apology for totally being a complete asshole, and then trying to turn it around on me like I was the one full of shit.

And for future reference, I don't need to be told to 'smoke a bowl'... it's too much like 'take a midol' or whatever you're current fav is. It's rude, it's condescending, you know it... that's why you said it... own it and fucking knock it off.

Why can't you just live with the fact that you tried to act like a hot shot and 'pwn me all thread pvp style' and you got your ass handed to you.

I'm done with you. Glad Coco is up and running, happy to take further comments/questions about the topic.

:bong:

[Uncle Fester]

First off the rci2970 better know as a ranger 2970 is a 10 or 12 meter band rig. If you are using it as a 11 meter rig then it will not function prope


I just realized that when I said I had a 2m, 10 and 11m in the car you thought I meant I had a radio that does 2m, 10m, and 11m. But in reality, my ENGLISH sentence states that I have two radios, a 2m, and a 10/11m radio. The 2m is a standard Moto talkie, and doesn't work very well at all.

Additionally, once you're modified the RCI-2970, the power range varies from 3 to 300 watts on the internal amplifier depending on the TX frequency you're using and your SWR calibration. That's Signal to Watt ratio in case you needed a hand with that.

Currently, the Wilson 1000 silver coil whip works quite well across both 10 and 11m bands without making adjustments to the base, I'm in at 1.1 for the freq I like to talk on, which is 27.485AM/LSB. There's still lots of skip in the upper 40s at times.

:bong:
Bullshit on the power range. I have seen one more modified than I would bet yours is and it topped at 100watts.

As for antenna...silly girl Wilson is a good antenna but a predator 10k will roflstonp it. Add in a texas star volus midulator and you will step all over any of the mud ducks.

You are in over your head on this subject with me. I was talking skip long before you was born on my 23 channel sbe trinadad cb on a super scanner antenna.

Btw dumbass swr is standing wave ratio.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Lain (is Bams)]

Bullshit on the power range. I have seen one more modified than I would bet yours is and it topped at 100watts.

As for antenna...silly girl Wilson is a good antenna but a predator 10k will roflstonp it. Add in a texas star volus midulator and you will step all over any of the mud ducks.

You are in over your head on this subject with me. I was talking skip long before you was born on my 23 channel sbe trinadad cb on a super scanner antenna.

Btw dumbass swr is standing wave ratio.
Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

Well fuck Fester then start a thread about it and I'll be happy to listen to you. I do not claim to have any level of expertise in the field of ham radio. I have my ticket to talk, and my brother built my radio. I've had it since he gave it to me when I was 16, and it works pretty flipping well. I like the modulation and it's nice to have the one unit that does both bands.

:bong:

[Uncle Fester]

Bams I didn't assume you had a ynmodified rig. I do know you assume im not knowledgable on this.

As for owning you pvp style...im not mulch. I like to troll people esp. when I know tgmhey will get chapped asscheeks. Everytime you responded with abreakdown of my post I died a little.

I can understand the smoke a bowl comment, that isn't how it was meant.

Now if your sincere is shooting the shot about cbs..im game. Im not active anymore but I love them the same.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Cocoanut Koala]

What online back-up service do you guys recommend?

[Cocoanut Koala]

Fucking fucking fuckers. You remember I told you they put Microsoft Security Essentials on it.

Well, this thing comes up at the bottom saying Microsoft Security Essentials has found these trojans. So I click on it. It goes through this song and dance, then tells me there are three things it can't get, and that I must scan online.

It won't let me NOT scan online. So I do that deal, and these names come up and it goes through this song and dance and finally suggests four of them that are free. Mind you, I am very suspicious of this whole thing, but I can't get out of it, and I'm thinking, well, maybe this is a very nifty way they have of getting EVERYthing.

So I pick one of those and click on it and it goes though its song and dance. (Enough time for me to wash my hair.) Then it says it got all but three, for which I need this heuristics module.

So I click on that, and it costs $69.

You can click, "continue on unprotected." Except of course that doesn't work. You can't get out of it. Computer hijacked. I unplugged the computer and tried again. No go, it was still there.

So I call the place and they say there is a fake microsoft security essentials going around.

Well, this isn't really news to me, because I remember seeing this thing before, and then when I went to where it said, I didn't recognize the site, and wouldn't play.

Understand, for all I knew I *had* microsoft security essentials at the time, being as how it did say "microsoft." And so now I was thinking, well maybe my problems I had recently were precisely because I didn't click it the previous times I'd seen it. So I clicked it.

The only reason I'm able to tell you this now is this computer is divided into three sections (it came that way) assigned to different family members, and I'm on my husband's, where this deal hasn't gotten as far along. It has only just thrown up the original message that the whole thing begins with.

And on this, I am on mobile for some reason, and can't seem to change it.

The good news is, after I posted this morning, I spent a couple of hours backing up everything and its dog, including all photos and any documents I might want back through dec of 2008.

I'm about ready to just quit the fucking internet. It is more hassle than its worth.

:coco:

[Phoenix Psaltery]

Carbonite is supposed to be as good as any, and costs $55 a year iirc.

P2

[Spaceman Opus]

Coco if you can downoad and run the Comodo program Bams linked to it might be able to help. I say "might" because I don't know Comodo and I don't know how your husband's acct is set up on that computer. If it has administrator rights you'd be all set.

[Cocoanut Koala]

Mine is the one with adminstrator rights.

More fun: Now that I'm on his, I tried to go back to the forum I was reading earlier. But guess what! It now sends you wherever it wants to. In other words, I can't click on a google find and actually get to it. Now I get to what they want me to read.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Cocoanut Koala]

More fun, and I will say this quick while I can.

Now it won't even let me stay on the page I am on - to type this message forinstance! Just brings up a whole new page!

[Cocoanut Koala]

Who are these people who think this is a great thing to do to people? I think they should all be SHOT. After being tortured.

[Uncle Fester]

What online back-up service do you guys recommend?
I seem to remember some people recommending some companies in a thread a while back. I cant seems to find it but its in this subforum. Mulch being one of the people offering suggestions and iirc Govi did also. But I could be wrong.





Im gonna man up and toss the truce flag out to bams. I was truly trolling her to get a response and probably should have stopped. But per my mo kiting her around while tossing rocks at her made me lol. My posts regarding the cb's werent complete trolls it was more of me proving a point. But I digress on that subject and would rather not continue that avenue. As Im out of rocks and too lazy to gather more.

[Brigid]

One thing that's worked for me when I had a similar attack is free software called Hijack This. I downloaded it from a clean PC to a thumb drive and installed it in the infected pc and used it to clean my registry. No more problems. It may be worth a try.

http://free.antivirus.com/hijackthis/

[Cocoanut Koala]

I downloaded Hijack This. But it gave me a whole list of things, saying that they weren't necessarily harmful, and to be careful not to delete them without knowing what they are.

There was a button you could click on for more information about each, and the few I clicked on, turns out they were legitimate. The computer is going back in the shop.

[Cocoanut Koala]

P.S. I would love to get out of this "mobile" but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it. Is there something I'm not noticing?

[Abe Froman]

What online back-up service do you guys recommend?

:kita: is happy with carbonite

Use code name leo to get 2 free months if you buy. There is a free trial as well

moto droid froyo using tapatalk

[JohnnyVann]

:kita: is happy with carbonite

Use code name leo to get 2 free months if you buy. There is a free trial as well

moto droid froyo using tapatalk

Thanks, I've been meaning to ask about that

[Lain (is Bams)]

Ok... based on what you've posted since I read last... sounds like there is an existing problem with corruption (possibly virus or malware related) and then you had a HDD glitch which cause you to have boot issues. I have a feeling these two things are not related, but the failure of the hard drive and it's subsequent probing for a fix might have cut loose some of the other shit that's on your machine.

If you're up to it, back up your data and do a fresh install of Windows. Barring that, I would say install Comodo and then update it and let it do a FULL SYSTEM SCAN. After it's complete, it gives you a list of shit it found and will ask you to quarantine items it didn't like.... if it cannot do that it will offer to remove them.... any files it cannot access it will que for removal/quarantine on the next reboot which it should then ask you to perform.

Comodo will then boot BEFORE your desktop and will run in TEXT MODE (blue screen, white ascii text) while it finishes it's job and then continues on to Windows.

At that point, execute a two pass CCLeaner run removing temp and garbage files first and then using the registry cleaner tool to clean your registry, reboot then defrag and tell me where you're at.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

I cannot recommend any online back up services as I do not use them, I provide my clients with a space in my datacenter to back up their data over a secure VPN to my redundant setup which is then offloaded to an offsite storage medium monthly.

I do not trust online backup services that exist in the ether. I like to see the people who are handling my data, be able to travel to the place where it's stored, and remove it from said facility in it's entirety when I'm finished storing it there. Most places will maintain copies of yuor data even after it's been 'purged' from the system and this is so beyond not ok.

The best thing to do is take that old machine you have and set it up as a 'server' box. Then you can setup a script (or there's umpteen thousand software packages, my favorite currently is Acronis) that will let you establish a regular backup routine and copy files to your 'server' for storage and retrieval.

If you're worried about someone breaking in and stealing your shit, or something like that, buy a small VM appliance on a local datacenter with moderate bandwidth.

:bong:

[Lain (is Bams)]

Bams I didn't assume you had a ynmodified rig. I do know you assume im not knowledgable on this.

As for owning you pvp style...im not mulch. I like to troll people esp. when I know tgmhey will get chapped asscheeks. Everytime you responded with abreakdown of my post I died a little.

I can understand the smoke a bowl comment, that isn't how it was meant.

Now if your sincere is shooting the shot about cbs..im game. Im not active anymore but I love them the same.

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

K so here's how I'm gonna manage this.....

I'm cool with you backing down on the back and forth. I got your PM and I'm good with what was contained therein.

While I do not claim to know everything, I tend to make a decent attempt to know as much as I can about whatever subject it is that holds my interest at the time. I tend to pop from subject to subject, I was really into radios for awhile when my brother was heavy into modding them, but that passed.

There's countless projects sitting around my place unfinished because I got up from it and became sidetracked by something more interesting... I tend to bore quickly once I've figured out the 'trick 'to whatever it is I'm working on. It loses it's shine then I suppose.

My only request is that in the future, we keep the trolling and/or blows to the subject at hand, dragging that radio stuff in here from wherever I posted it (T-Mobile tread I don't recall) was a little off-base for sure.

Mostly I was totally lost because I missed the relevant point. I guess at that point we were just tossing any random grenade into the mix?

Anyhow, as far as sincere, I meant what I said... radios interest me and if that's a subject you are fluent in by all means, let's make a thread and kick some stuff around. I'm always willing to learn something new.

Yeah I know I can get my ham ticket pulled if I get caught TXing on a modified RCI rig, but how many FCC trucks do you see wandering around inspecting people's radios? If my brother is telling the truth, they haven't given much of a shit about radio for a long time.

:hug:

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

OK, got computer back.

STILL STUCK ON MOBILE HERE. That is, I don't HAVE mobile, but I am using the mobile skin, and can't get back to the regular!

Anyone know how to?

So they fixed the computer without any charge.

I can get back into it. But there is still some sort of virus that takes you to the wrong place (where they are selling something), and won't let you get out of it.

Also, this black box appeared very briefly and went away. By black box, I mean a small black box of the kind you see when it is doing something internally - you know, with white writing on a black background.

This is not a good sign.

The good thing is, I backed up everything yesterday morning.

I will review the rest of the advice in the posts prior to this one later.

My estimation of these guys is they aren't like the World's Foremost Experts on Everything, plus they care more about "fixing" things and getting them going rapidly than they do in (a) understanding the whys of everything or (b) fixing every last little thing clean as a whistle.

In other words, they aren't you guys. However, they are better than I am. That is, I couldn't even get IN my part of the computer yesterday, and they could.

But I do suspect there are worse things afoot here which will reveal themselves ultimately.

Now to go try to get rid of this thing that wants to sell me stuff.

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

If you're up to it, back up your data and do a fresh install of Windows. Barring that, I would say install Comodo and then update it and let it do a FULL SYSTEM SCAN. After it's complete, it gives you a list of shit it found and will ask you to quarantine items it didn't like.... if it cannot do that it will offer to remove them.... any files it cannot access it will que for removal/quarantine on the next reboot which it should then ask you to perform.

Comodo will then boot BEFORE your desktop and will run in TEXT MODE (blue screen, white ascii text) while it finishes it's job and then continues on to Windows.

At that point, execute a two pass CCLeaner run removing temp and garbage files first and then using the registry cleaner tool to clean your registry, reboot then defrag and tell me where you're at.

Thanks, Bams. All this I will do later. I will

(1) download comodo and run it.

(2) Find CCLEaner and download it and run it. (though something else I downloaded and ran in the past couple of days, was it CCLeaner? did that - yes it was that, I see the icon for it. Anyway, run it again after Comodo).

(3) Use the registry cleaner tool that I have - which is Registry Mechanic. I did that the other day, too. I notice its shortcut icon is now missing for some reason, but the install icon is still there.

(4) Reboot and defrag.

I will do all that within the next few days (if the computer lets me). Right now, I gotta go to grocery store and my back hurts. Plus hubby's birthday is coming up. But that will be the plan, once I get around to it.

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

And thanks, Mulch, for the online storage recommendation.

[Spaceman Opus]

(3) Use the registry cleaner tool that I have - which is Registry Mechanic. I did that the other day, too. I notice its shortcut icon is now missing for some reason, but the install icon is still there.

Sounds like they just did a system restore?

Not sure how good Registry Mechanic is, seems to get OK reviews...there's another good registry cleaner here:
http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cleaner/registry_cleaner.htm

Also, CCleaner has its own registry cleaner. The Icon is on the left side when CCleaner is running.

[Mulch]

:coco:

go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ and run the online virus scan

it may help

the black box is most likely something neferious running in DOS

i bet i could find it if i had access to your registry, as it is probably initiated from there every time you boot

as far as ending up on a spam page, that is most likely something different, malware called "hijackers"

neither seems that advanced, so old school methods might work (in another life i ran an adult business and hijackers got their start on adult webpages that I would end up whilst marketing)

after you run the trend micro house call, if it finds stuff tell it to clean it

it will prolly tell you to reboot after cleaning it, but dont, not yet, but write down the names of what it found

run windows update, and make sure you have all of the high priority and optional updates. you may not need them all, but MAKE SURE you get anything that says "windows malicious software removal"

then reboot after install, and reboot once again for good measure

then go back to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

if you are STILL infected with the same crap (that you wrote down after the last scan) , it may take a bit more effort

also, i disagree with bams and think spybot and spywareblaster are excellent tools for their browser immunization abilities

i ran those programs for 2 years with nothing worse than tracking cookies to show for it (no antivirus)

i recommend you install spybot and spywareblaster (both free) and update and immunize (or enable all protection)

bams will prolly explain why I am wrong, but it has served me well and for the type of computing you most likely do, will help with these crap programs

do you run an antivirus :coco:?

[Spaceman Opus]

I can vouch for Spybot being a tad bloatware-ish. It seems it's the immunization that does it, but for me, I gained noticeable speed after uninstalling and deleting Spybot.

I have Malwarebytes installed but not running, and I update it and use it to scan the system once every couple weeks. That plus a nightly virus scan has kept me pretty much safe.

YMMV

[Mulch]

I can vouch for Spybot being a tad bloatware-ish. It seems it's the immunization that does it, but for me, I gained noticeable speed after uninstalling and deleting Spybot.

I have Malwarebytes installed but not running, and I update it and use it to scan the system once every couple weeks. That plus a nightly virus scan has kept me pretty much safe.

YMMV

i dont get the feeling that :coco: is a poweruser who requires speed over protection

also, next time you install (or reinstall) windows, before you update, notice how blazing fast it is

then run all the windows updates and cry at what happened to your fast system

pretty much anything you run that acts as a filter (operating system, immunization, antivirus) will slow you down as well, so its live fast and die hard or go slow and be safer, i guess

[Lain (is Bams)]

Reload the machine. Back up your data and then reinstall Windows. You're machine has been fucked up beyond repair. If you continue to bang on it, and install/uninstall, scan/fix your machine with shit like SpyBot and the like, you will only exacerbate your problem.

I'm still not convinced you don't have an underlying hardware problem, which is making the entire situation worse. In either case, you will not be able to get the system back into a functional state that you are happy with, I can almost guarantee that at this point.

I've done several thousand of these at this point in my life, so take it for what it's worth. You're wasting your time. Windows needs to be reloaded. I WOULD NOT take it back to monkeyland and let them do it.

:bong:

[Mulch]

Reload the machine. Back up your data and then reinstall Windows. You're machine has been fucked up beyond repair. If you continue to bang on it, and install/uninstall, scan/fix your machine with shit like SpyBot and the like, you will only exacerbate your problem.

I'm still not convinced you don't have an underlying hardware problem, which is making the entire situation worse. In either case, you will not be able to get the system back into a functional state that you are happy with, I can almost guarantee that at this point.

I've done several thousand of these at this point in my life, so take it for what it's worth. You're wasting your time. Windows needs to be reloaded. I WOULD NOT take it back to monkeyland and let them do it.

:bong:

i would agree with about 95% of what bams said

a fresh install of windows is truly awesome as well

in the future, when you get a new computer, get 2 hard drives IN IT

use one for the operating system (smaller hd, 80 gigs or so is fine), and another for your programs and data (larger hd)

that makes reinstalling windows much easier and you don't really need to back up your data as a reinstall wont effect anything on the 2nd hard drive

you will need to reinstall your programs, but many will be able to read the data from the second hard drive (preferences, etc) if you install it to the same place

[Lain (is Bams)]

I wouldn't say you are wrong Mulch... about Spybot. I would say that there's no need for them if you practice safe browsing practices, use a safe browser like Firefox or Chromium (not Chrome) with appropriate extensions for adblocking and noscript (for FFox Chrome doesn't need it).... then there's no need for those applications, which have a tendency to mar your system during heuristic 'malware' detection routines.

They provide more false positives than the malware they actually do stop, and only serve to make the operator feel as if they're being assaulted with viruses, to quote one of my elderly clients.

In addition, depending on which AV/FW product you use, they are entirely useless as most modern AV/FW products have built in malware defense which provides these services without the need for another application taking up uneeded resources.

So while they might actually do what they say, the payoffs do not outweigh the drawbacks. Too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the soup.

:bong:

[Mulch]

STILL STUCK ON MOBILE HERE.

wZnNS1iNuDM

[Uncle Fester]

I totally read that as too many cocks in the kitchen..was gonna ask wtf is wrong with cocks in the kitchen.


Bams have you noticed any issues with that vbul plugin you told us to use? It seems to lag the fuck out of FF for me.

[Lain (is Bams)]

I've noticed FFox lagging like a mother for me in general, so I'm not sure. I haven't tried to F with the plugins I have just been using Chromium. I was reading about issues with flash on the latest iterations of Firefox and some of the plugins not playing well with the adobe plugins.

I'll disable it and see what happens. I'll get back to you.

:bong:

[Uncle Fester]

I know its that plugin. I disabled it the other day. pages loaded faster. Was curious if it was just me or not :D .

[Lain (is Bams)]

Well, off the top I would guess it'll add lag based on the fact that it's rearranging the php code on the page 'on-the-fly' so to speak, according to the filters you've set. I haven't noticed that it's excruciatingly slow, but yeah I would say it's noticeable when it's disabled.

I guess it comes down to how much you want to protect your senses from the visual assault brought on by a handful of asshats. :D

:bong:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Since I was last on the thread, the computer went into the shop a third time.

Now it's fixed, and I have it back. (I hope for good this time.)

I'll update you on it at some later point; I'm tired from having had hubby's birthday today.

:coco:

[Govi]

Since I was last on the thread, the computer went into the shop a third time.

Now it's fixed, and I have it back. (I hope for good this time.)

I'll update you on it at some later point; I'm tired from having had hubby's birthday today.

:coco:

Oh, dear. For how much more have they hit you? And have they answered any questions re the name, type, means found, etc. for the virus they claimed was the culprit for your initial problems, as well as the subsequent ones?

[Cocoanut Koala]

No wait, I'll do it now. (Without reading the earlier responses, though; I'm really tired.)

Anyway, the third time what went wrong is I noticed another web page popping up which I didn't want to go to.

So I remembered he said that he'd installed Combofix for future problems. So I clicked on that. But I decided I didn't want to do it (it wanted to - I thought it said, uninstall, but it really only wanted to turn off - a couple of other programs), so I tried to click off.

And then it got hung up and I couldn't get out of it and the whole COMPUTER was snafu.

So I had my husband load it into the car and this time I was going to take it back myself. Which was Thursday.

So Thursday morning, armed with my list of other errands for husband's birthday, I backed down the long driveway where we have lived you know for the past fifteen years, and turned out of the driveway and ran smack into a city leaf-sweeping vehicle, which despite its size, had managed to be right smack in the very spot between two huge bushes where it couldn't be seen.

There was this huge crash and I was afraid I'd killed somebody. The back windshield of the van smashed out, and the frame was all bent up. The leaf-sweeping vehicle was indestructible and didn't show anything but a few glass particles, and the driver barely heard it. And didn't feel it!

Quite a difference from my experience, which was very loud and very abrupt and very startling.

They called the police who added insult to injury by giving me a TICKET. For "improper backing." I told my husband I backed perfectly properly down that driveway. He said, "Right, go tell the court how you backed down the driveway perfectly properly into the other vehicle."

haha

So now I don't have a car (insurance says they will pay all but the $250 deductible) for who knows how long, and had to get my husband to take me around on all the errands for his own birthday!

Anyway, so that night my husband took me with the computer, and the guy was very glad of that, because he wanted to see me, not the husband who could tell him nothing. He was getting frustrated. (This was the third time in with the machine, but the first time with me to talk with him about it - previously had been just me leaving messages to one or the other of the guys by phone.)

So they mirrored the data overnight and the next day I picked it up with the new hard drive in it and it was fixed.

He talked about how he'd sat five hours with that machine total, trying to make sure nothing would go wrong, even though it was only a small amount of money.

I told him I believed him, I understood, and I trusted him.

So anyway, this go around, turns out the hard drive had parts on it that were unreadable. He said it didn't show that in his earlier testing, and I said well that just goes to show, don't ever try to click out of Combofix.

He said there could have been earlier problems, but they just didn't show up until that day, after my combofix problem.

I sat there about an hour with him, while he went through all these things. I had told him he on the phone he would have trouble getting on, and he hadn't really believed me, but he saw that yes indeed, he couldn't get on, so he did some of those magic things they do to get on.

He wanted me to sit there and go through it all with him. "Just go onto Google and click on whatever you normally do," he said. "I want you to be comfortable with it."

So I typed in google: "He thinks I don't know how to run a computer!" Oh no, no! he said, it's not that! I just want you comfortable with it! I said, hey, I was comfortable with it the first two times.

Anyway I was just teasing him. These guys in this small shop are very nice, and DO want to spend a lot of time explaining things to the customer (the reviews I'd read said as much).

So anyway, I've got that computer back, with a new hard drive, and having received personal instruction on how to go into safe mode, and work the various programs like Combofix he'd put in. Had I been there the first time, he probably would have said, "say yes to everything [combofix asks]," and I wouldn't have had that problem.

Or maybe he didn't know that not saying yes could somehow lead to such a problem.

My instinct though is that the hard drive had problems already, even though they didn't show up at first, and that may be why I couldn't get out of combofix.

So when we picked up the computer last night, we left off the downstairs backup one for him to fix.

He didn't charge any more for the second and third times this computer was in there, either; just the cost of the hard drive. All in all, I think they lost money on me, time-wise.

One of its problems the downstairs computer has is having only a 256k memory, because I'd designed that one for my mother, who didn't need much memory, and I was trying to save her as much as I could on whatever corners here and there.

So they're putting in more memory on it.

Now: I told him you guys had said that boot viruses hadn't been around in ten years. (He knows you guys exist, and knows that I run stuff past you.)

He said they didn't. They didn't exist for the past ten years, but in just the last five weeks he said he had a buncha customers who had picked them up. So maybe they are making a comeback.

Sum total, I'm very pleased with this guy and the other guys. They are cute and nice and smart and funny and try to provide good service for the money.

I asked my son-in-law about them today, and he said yes, they were pretty good. He said smaller outfits can be better than the bigger ones anyway, which I agree with.

So, let's hope third time is the charm. The computer, by the way, is three years old, not four.

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

I forgot to mention about the car wreck. The guy driving the leaf-sweeping truck - the supervisor came out, along with the police (they have to call both, apparently), and told the guy he had to go immediately to get drug tested and told him where. There were two guys, a guy driving that truck and another guy driving a smaller truck that goes along with it (for some reason).

I said, that's not fair, they didn't do anything. He said, "It's policy."

So on toppa everything else, this guy may lose his job because of his bad luck that I backed down my own driveway when I did.

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Sounds like they just did a system restore?

Not sure how good Registry Mechanic is, seems to get OK reviews...there's another good registry cleaner here:
http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cleaner/registry_cleaner.htm

Also, CCleaner has its own registry cleaner. The Icon is on the left side when CCleaner is running.

So I found out. The guy at the shop told me I could just use the one on CCleaner.

[Cocoanut Koala]

:coco:

go to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ and run the online virus scan

it may help

the black box is most likely something neferious running in DOS

i bet i could find it if i had access to your registry, as it is probably initiated from there every time you boot

as far as ending up on a spam page, that is most likely something different, malware called "hijackers"

neither seems that advanced, so old school methods might work (in another life i ran an adult business and hijackers got their start on adult webpages that I would end up whilst marketing)

after you run the trend micro house call, if it finds stuff tell it to clean it

it will prolly tell you to reboot after cleaning it, but dont, not yet, but write down the names of what it found

run windows update, and make sure you have all of the high priority and optional updates. you may not need them all, but MAKE SURE you get anything that says "windows malicious software removal"

then reboot after install, and reboot once again for good measure

then go back to http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

if you are STILL infected with the same crap (that you wrote down after the last scan) , it may take a bit more effort

also, i disagree with bams and think spybot and spywareblaster are excellent tools for their browser immunization abilities

i ran those programs for 2 years with nothing worse than tracking cookies to show for it (no antivirus)

i recommend you install spybot and spywareblaster (both free) and update and immunize (or enable all protection)

bams will prolly explain why I am wrong, but it has served me well and for the type of computing you most likely do, will help with these crap programs

do you run an antivirus :coco:?

Yes, I did, the spybot and also PC something or other and maybe something else, and the guy thought it odd that these things were getting past. Then after he put on his (Microsoft security essentials - which, by the way, he HATES me calling it "his" cause he says its not his but it's Microsoft's which I know, hey -) and the malawarebytes, something came up on it even then, too. Something that made a page come up that shouldn't, I mean.

Anyhow, nothing bad happening so far this time.

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Reload the machine. Back up your data and then reinstall Windows. You're machine has been fucked up beyond repair. If you continue to bang on it, and install/uninstall, scan/fix your machine with shit like SpyBot and the like, you will only exacerbate your problem.

I'm still not convinced you don't have an underlying hardware problem, which is making the entire situation worse. In either case, you will not be able to get the system back into a functional state that you are happy with, I can almost guarantee that at this point.

I've done several thousand of these at this point in my life, so take it for what it's worth. You're wasting your time. Windows needs to be reloaded. I WOULD NOT take it back to monkeyland and let them do it.

:bong:

Yeah, we'll see how it does now that it has the new hard drive. (Plus I notice there's a new partition icon thingie on here, too - he did something to partition or something).

About me, though - you have to understand that I am not good at doing these things like you are.

For example, I can watch him drag out the hard drive, and it is obvious to me that replacing the hard drive is not something that is exactly difficult to do.

On the other hand, it's not something I would want to go through and do by myself for the first time. (Or, for that matter, not something I would get any particular kick out of doing even if I knew how to do it.)

The re-installing Windows I was saving for a last resort. Because that would mean also finding all the documentation and disks and so fort and trying to put the scanner and printer on again, and reload everything else, which would be a nightmare for me and not necessarily successful.

So I'm still saving it as a last resort. (I'm assuming that mirroring my hard drive and putting it on the other means that Windows was not technically reloaded.)

As an even laster resort, I'm saving buying a whole new computer altogether. Course, that isn't easy to do when you don't have a computer up and running where you can research and order the new computer.

:coco:

P.S. Interestingly, I gave considerable thought during all this to whether or not I could live without the Internet, which would save me more money.

I mean, I seriously pondered it for quite a while. I concluded that I could live without it, but I might as well try to live without my washer and dryer to save money, and wash all my clothes and household items by hand and hang them up on a line to dry. You know, it could be done, but is it worth it? Or necessary at this point?

I mean, I thought about all the things I depend on the internet for. I get almost all my news off it. I look up the weather on it, and check out movies before we go to them. I plan vacations on it, including my entire last vacation and itinerary for it. I order parts off of it for things that break, and I order scrapbook items that I find I don't have enough of (things that are out of date and no longer in stores). And gifts for people. I look up all kinds of medical stuff. I find forums of people who are facing whatever personal problems I am, and get succor from those. And I use the internet to check the reviews on EVERYTHING I ever purchase. (Or almost everything, anyway.)

I no longer need it for work, so I could live without it. And I no longer need it for a house business in SL even, haha. But that is still an awful lot of things I have become to depend on, almost like I depend on air to breathe.

As for the computer itself, I use it to scan and print pictures and things. And to write on. There really isn't a way that I know of to scan things and print them without a computer.

So I decided to keep the internet (and the computer), until things get really bad, if they ever do.

It's interesting, though, as I never actually faced this down before. The idea of whether or not I could live without it, I mean.

:coco:

[Cocoanut Koala]

Oh, dear. For how much more have they hit you? And have they answered any questions re the name, type, means found, etc. for the virus they claimed was the culprit for your initial problems, as well as the subsequent ones?

OH YES. I asked them the names of those viruses they initially found like y'all wanted to know! He said he didn't remember exactly, but told me part of the names, which I wrote down. Let me go find it if I can.

Shoot, it is not in the stack of papers I thought it was in, so I'll have to hope I find it later. The things I wrote down sounded like - I seem to remember the first one was three letters (like VGB, but not those letters), and the second one, he had to tell me how to spell, I believe it started with an A, and had three syllables. Like "Aleura" or something (but not that).

Those were the initial ones. The second thing was a problem caused by me clicking on that fake Microsoft Essentials box that came up. (The one I had always avoided clicking on before in the past, because I didn't recognize its web site, but this time clicked on it, because I thought I was supposed to.)

That one, you will recall, hijacked the whole machine, and dragged me around though all this song and dance to ultimately where they wanted me to pay $69.

Funny story: The computer guy said other people do pay that. He had one guy come in and said, "I paid them $69 twice, and it still doesn't work." I told the computer guy if it had asked for $5, I might damn well have paid it, just to get my computer back, even though I knew I shouldn't. We agreed that if these crooks would just lower their price point, they might make a whole lot more money! haha

The third event was some page coming up I didn't want and then trying Combofix and trying to get out of it and not being able to and that was the problem there. What caused that page coming up was never determined and was in fact not important compared to what the Combofix fiasco did.

That time, he sat there with me the whole time and fixed it while showing me how he did. (Which took a couple of tries with different things because, as I said, you couldn't get into Windows at all, after the combofix thing.)

As for the money, as you know by now, by reading my post from last night, they charged nothing more, and spent ages explaining things to me, walking me through them, and answering any and all questions. (And the guy talks fast, and says a great deal, and I don't - especially about this stuff, which I talk about slowly and carefully and laboriously, and especially when taking these pills I'm taking for my back, so you can give him tremendous kudos for his patience for me.)

(My back, by the way - I guess it will never be the same again, and I dread when I run out of these pills again.)

Which makes me feel GUILTY for not paying them more! haha After all, I don't want them going out of business! But I suppose they much prefer a happy customer who will come back (and recommend them to others), and don't mind taking a loss to achieve that.

So yeah, the guys are straightforward and honest. And I think pretty competent, especially when you think about all the rest you could be going to. I once, long ago, had a problem with something - it may have been the printer, I don't remember - that I took back to the big box store where I'd bought it, and they not only kept it for a coupla weeks, they charged an arm and a leg and didn't really even fix it.

I don't remember all the details and could be wrong on part of that, but the whole experience stuck with me, turning me off to these big box computer stores, as far as repairs go, anyway, and making me wary of taking anything to ANYBODY. There was also another time with something - maybe a printer - I took to a guy working out of his house in the neighborhood, and that was the end of doing that sort of thing. After that, I never took anything anywhere, till now.

Whereas these guys, you get machine back the next day, if not sooner.

And for me, much as I'm capable of keeping a machine cleaned up and running without any problems - which I am, and you know I have to be, or I never could have mastered SL and making stuff in it like I did - there are things which are beyond my abilities.

I just don't have the programs and stuff to fix them, or the know-how; for instance, like the computers downstairs.

Or the desire. At a certain point, you would rather be spending your hours doing something more productive (and fun). All last week I worked on the downstairs computer - taking overnight (and tying up the phone line) to download antivirus programs only one of three of which would actually install and work - and so forth. So that was the end of my road with that, and the guys at the shop get it.

I probably wasted all that time, at that. But I like to try to fix it myself first. But WITHIN REASON. Which is a much narrower range of things than it would be for Bams or some of the rest of you.

I'm just never going to replace things inside the computer for myself, for instance, and that's apparently all there is to it. Now that I've found these guys, I will take computers to them when they need new things inside.

:coco:

P.S. They did show me how to get the dust out, though!

Apparently the case just snaps off easily, no screwdrivers or nothin! Who knew? :D

[Lain (is Bams)]

Sorry to hear about your accident. :hug:

Boot block viruses are NOT making a comeback, whatever tool he's using is misdiagnosing the issue, I double-checked all of my watchlists, and all's quiet on the Boot Block virus front.

Hopefully, the new drive will resolve most of your problems. I personally think that was your issue to start with, and hopefully you won't have to reload Windows (but I'm cringing at the thought of you running your system on a mirror of that old data :().

It's becoming increasingly more difficult to live without the Internet, especially since broadband and media providers are working together to conjoin the technologies into a single service we all must pay through the nose for. :D

In the meantime, the best things you can do are are the things you've been doing.... safe web surfing, listen to the advice of those who tell you not to use anything Microsoft that isn't absolutely imperative, and keep a good FW/AV product on your machine.

Unforunately sometimes you just can't do enough, and fall into that handful of people who have issues regardless of eveyrthing else.

With that said.... you had no virus, your issues were ALL related to a failing piece of hardware. Based on everything you've described, and the steps taken by the shop, it's like I'm listening to a record that's been played back 1000 or so times recently.

Corrupt data is widely misdiagnosed as viruses by those who fail to understand how heuristic virus detection and prevention protocols work. It's not anyone's fault, there's just too much to do in the 'computer' field anymore to keep up with. Maybe they just don't see it from the same angle as I"m looking at it, and as I said previously... .it's simpler to 'blame it on the rain,' if you catch my metaphor.

I'm telling you this not to belittle your shop, or anything like that, but to make you feel more secure about the fact that you did nothing wrong and your situation was simply unavoidable due to hardware you had no idea was failing. Windows is very bad at warning the end-user of imminent failures until long after it's too late to resolve them.

:hug:

ETA: I've never used combofix (or even heard of it for that matter) but on the outset it looks rather iffy. I would be cautious with the use of that tool for any reason.

[Cocoanut Koala]

Yeah, he said only use combofix as a last resort.

I agree about the hard drive being the big problem. Hope so, anyway!

I also agree about the world conspiring to be ever more internet-dependent.

One day, though, when I am old and poor, I probably will decide that I just don't need the world that much anyhow.

:coco:

[Govi]

I'm glad that you've found good local help for your computer, Coco. I hope you find that piece of paper with your notes on it and can tell us the virus name(s).

Backs do get better, Coco. You just need to get through this acute phase, slowly, carefully, and with painkillers. You led aerobic dance once, right? Then you know what to do, I think. Just be careful with yourself, as you ease back into life. The recovery rate for back problems is the same with and without surgery. Most people are well again after a year or two, which is a fucking long time with pain and mobility limitations, but it's not forever. :hug:

I'm incautious enough to play the image thread games here. Sometimes, a good image offered by Google leads to one of those pages that pops up a little fake dialog box that claims I am infected, blah, blah, blah. I always keep Task Manager open so that I can see what is really going on. When I get one of those fake virus warnings, I use Task Manager's Applications tab End Task button to kill my browser at that point, since no matter what I do otherwise, I'd be forced to click something in that "virus warning." I'm not a coder, but if I were and a malicious one, I would make it so that anything I click in that "virus warning" is sufficient permission to proceed with whatever I want to do to my prospective sucker's machine.

Sure, with the End Task, I lose some of what I was doing, but, well, that's fine with me; much better safe than sorry.

[Cocoanut Koala]

Good tip!

[Spaceman Opus]

As an even laster resort, I'm saving buying a whole new computer altogether. Course, that isn't easy to do when you don't have a computer up and running where you can research and order the new computer.

Be careful here...computers know when you're looking to replace them and they don't like it at all. Twice now I've had a computer die on me because I was doing research into replacing it because of obsolescence.

Cars do that to me too. When my ex and I were still together, every time we discussed finally being able to afford a 2nd car, the original car would get scared that it was being replaced, have a heart attack and die. It took us 15 years to become a 2 car family, and that's because we finally learned to never discuss the prospect of a new baby in front of the old one :)