Is my hard drive infected by a virus? -1

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Mr Weedy
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OC Newbie
18 Jahre dabei !

AMD Athlon XP
1913 MHz @ 2243 MHz
54°C mit 1.776 Volt

I have this weird error messing around with me since christmas.

I have reinstalled windows enormous amount of times and this still comes and I even have totally new hard drive but nope...

So the problem is: My computer restarts after a while (in 2-7 days) and without any good reason at all. And after I get the IDE channel test, my booting hard drive has some kind of weird marks after it. Like !!!!!!!!!!! or " " " " " " and then its model name which is totally messed up, the name isn't correct any more.

And when the computer tries to load next screen where it lists all the computer specs (this won't show up normally) it stops there in the middle of the listing.

The weirdest thing is that I can always recover my hard drive by fixing the MBR (Master Boot Record).

So do you know at all do I have:

a) A very very mean and very well hidden MBR virus which waits sometime and then destroys my MBR? (I have ran some anti-virus programs which are specialized to detect and delete MBR viruses.)

Or

b) Do I have a WORM or some kind of other mean virus which destroys my NTFS.sys file or some other files so the hard drive don't know any more what is its model and so on. (This is the first time when I got an error which said that Ntfs.sys file was damaged and couldn't be used.)

Or

c) My motherboard or processor is so old and damaged that they make my booting hard drive after a while destroy its MBR or something like that?

I would really appreciate any kind of hints. I got one hint from a mod forum where the one said that it's my motherboard's fault but I don't know yet...

But please answer atleast something.

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NWD
aus Gronau (Leine)
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Real OC or Post God !
23 Jahre dabei !

AMD Ryzen 7
3800 MHz @ 4600 MHz
60°C mit 1.325 Volt

Alright, try following:

1) Try to use another Harddrive AND another IDE-Cable

Damage to both of them could cause similar errors.

-> Do you have S.M.A.R.T. active?
-> Can you run a low-level format on your HDD? ( would erase ALL data )
-> what is the result of CHKDSK / ScanDisk ect ?

Work like you don´t need the money Love like you´ve never been hurt Dance like nobody´s watching Sing like nobody´s listening
But Live as if you will die today

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Mr Weedy
offline

OC Newbie
18 Jahre dabei !

AMD Athlon XP
1913 MHz @ 2243 MHz
54°C mit 1.776 Volt

I have used different hard drive but not different IDE cable and yes. I got same kind of errors on both hard drives. On the old one and on this new one where I'm running my windows at the moment.

And I think I don't even have S.M.A.R.T. on this computer. Also the old hard drive worked just fine earlier like... at least half year. Then came this and also this new one has same kind of issues.

And I wouldn't like to run the low level format because then I would lose all my data. Well of course I could do it to other hard drive and test it someday so this new hard drive would be a place for my latest "backup files." Because I have got more things on this hard drive now.

And also when maybe a week earlier ran O&O Defrag program for all of my hard drives to the slave and master it didn't say any errors. Or it just can't handle them but I'll try to at least replace my IDE cable and run the CHKDSK or ScanDisk as soon as I can.

Thanks for tips.

I'll report back when I have done those two things. And I can do at least the first one right away.

Edit:

Okay I ran the CHKDSK command and it did find at least one file which it I think deleted because the results screen flashed there so quickly. It was called gateway.

Also I replaced my old IDE cable on very brand new. It hasn't been used at all earlier. I took it from my motherboard's box and it was totally in the shapes where it was put in the factory.

Also I think my computer crashed again when I was updating my windows while it was shutting down.

When the blue screened scandisk or some sort of program which checks hard drives, came up it started once again on the D: drive which is my second master drive but not the booting one. It checked it and it told that it was FAT32 as it should be and it told me that there weren't any errors.

Then it did something which it has never before done when this crash happened. It took the C: drive now under checking. And if I remember right. It didn't check it as it checked the D: but it went straight to the CHKDSK mode and there read that it deleted some lines from msscap.dll and also one or two other ms files and there were like... maybe six files which it "repaired" by deleting one line from there or so.

It told the line or something like that and all those files hade same last value and it was I$30 or at least $30.

That happened in the second phase of the scan. In the first phase it gave few lines where it told that "lohko" I think it is called sector in english, was deleted or not maybe deleted but marked or at least something, EVEN this is totally brand new hard drive. I think that is caused by the unexpected crash during the shut down while it was installing updates for windows.

I think that was all what happened now.

(Geändert von Mr Weedy um 18:41 am Jan. 11, 2007)

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NWD
aus Gronau (Leine)
offline

Real OC or Post God !
23 Jahre dabei !

AMD Ryzen 7
3800 MHz @ 4600 MHz
60°C mit 1.325 Volt

okay i think that i understood your text.

So changing the Harddrive and the IDE-Cable didn´t solve the Problem.

But you said that you use FAT32 and CHKDSK. Do you use Win2k or WinXP ?
-> Try to use NTFS instead of FAT32.

Tell me please what:
-> Mainboard you have
-> Harddrive you use
-> OS you use exactly

Have you overclocked your PC? On some Mainboards increasing the FSB also affects the IDE-Channel.

I think its more a problem of your Mainboard rather than a virus.

Work like you don´t need the money Love like you´ve never been hurt Dance like nobody´s watching Sing like nobody´s listening
But Live as if you will die today

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Mr Weedy
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OC Newbie
18 Jahre dabei !

AMD Athlon XP
1913 MHz @ 2243 MHz
54°C mit 1.776 Volt

Sorry if my text was messy but looks like I don't have to do anything of those any more.

First of all. I did change my Hard drive but I didn't change the IDE cable because I had no idea that it was its fault. And that crash happened just before I was going to change the IDE cable. When I changed it and now when I have tested it out some time looks like it was the reason why my computer kept crashing.

And my C: and E: drives which are on the same hard drive use NTFS and that D: drive where the CHKDSK always made the scan uses FAT32.

So yes, you were right the problem was on the hardware side than on the software side. Thanks for your help. Without I wouldn't have thought about changing IDE cable because it didn't look at all broken or anything like that.

So, thanks.

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