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Archive through April 08, 2004

The TVClubHouse: Archives: 2004 January - Arpil: Computer Problems? Ask here... (ARCHIVES): Archive through April 08, 2004 users admin

Author Message
Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Thursday, April 01, 2004 - 1:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
No Staples here.

Jan
Member

08-01-2000

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 10:37 am   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
VERY STRANGE!!! As you may remember, I just changed over from McAfee to Norton 2004 professional a month or so ago. Last week, for a few unrelated, non consecutive emails that went out, a Norton box popped up saying that Norton was unable to scan that email before sending. No problem, I just ignored it.

Then yesterday,out of the blue, a norton box popped up saying Norton was no longer able check my computer for viruses as some files or programs or something were missing (I forget the exact words). It was an official error message and linked me to their site for explanation of what to do.

At their site I attempted to print the message but my printer locked and would not operate.

Basically, the site told me to uninstall Norton and reinstall. I did that. As part of the reinstall, BTW, a total sys virus scan was run with nothing found.

Any idea what happened?? Why were files missing all of a sudden?? I haven't deleted any programs or files recently nor have I downloaded anything except gifs.

Any help would, as usual, be greatly appreciated. I don't like funny unexplained things happening to my computer. It makes me queasy :-)

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 1:02 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Jan: Unfortunately I don't have a good explanation of what occurred to cause this problem for you. There are too many possibilities to really speculate. If you know what particular files were missing or bad, I might be able to explore the problem more and offer an idea of what happened. Otherwise, I'm just glad you were able to resolve it without incident.

You may also want to be sure to run Adaware & Spybot, along with Juju's 'trojan hunter' on your system. Any of those might have affected Norton without it alerting you to it.

Let me know if you have any more information I can help with and I'll be happy to.

Jan
Member

08-01-2000

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 3:21 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks for replying , Dra. I downloaded Trojan hunter and ran it. It found nothing but it did tell me that it could not find a directory for D:\ or E:\. Should it have? Is that a problem??

I also updated and ran adware 6. It found a Dataminer cookie which I had it remove. Then I updated and ran spybot search just to be doubly sure and it found nothing.

So I guess I am OK??

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 3:42 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Just for the record, Bob2112 put me on to Trojan Hunter and I used it and liked it after Norton totally failed to detect the TWO Trojan viruses I had, while Housecall detected them but said it couldn't eliminate them.

I am beginning to wonder if Norton is slipping in the anti-virus world. I got viruses at least twice, maybe three times in 2004, WHILE my up-to-date Norton was actively running. I gave it up in disgust and installed Grisoft AVG instead.

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 5:47 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Jan: D:\ or E:\ may just be your CD-ROM drive(s) or some other storage device that doesn't have anything in it at the time of the scan. I don't think it's anything to worry about.

Juju, thanks for the clarification of credit. I guess I was just remembering to attribute that to you since you very recently suggested it to someone else.

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 11:09 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dra, you can continue to attribute it to me. I was just being falsely noble. Besides, I think the Sponge has gone into molting season and won't notice what we do over here anyway.



Bob2112
Member

06-12-2002

Saturday, April 03, 2004 - 11:38 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
<...or maybe just ignores much of it...>

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Sunday, April 04, 2004 - 2:46 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Ack!!!

spongejuju

Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 1:03 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
New angle on viruses: Got this in today -

**************************************
Date: Sat, 3 Apr 2004 18:10:17 -0500
From: <abuse@gov.us>
To: <juju@[].com>
Subject: Internet Provider Abuse

You have visited illegal websites.
I have a big list of the websites you surfed.

++++ Attachment: No Virus found
++++ F-Secure AntiVirus - www.f-secure.com

**************************************

With a 40Kb .zip attachment.


Bob2112
Member

06-12-2002

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 2:47 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dawg: Looks like your attachment would contain either the
Netsky.P or Netsky.Q virus.

The Netsky virus keeps changing every few days and data about Netsky.S is already being collected as of this morning.


Halfunit
Member

09-02-2001

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 7:28 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
I got the dumb BAGEL/BAGLE/BEAGLE one at work today... that one plays tricks with you because it referenced my company's webpage in the attachment.

Of course, the super slueths at Corporate ITD were ready for it, and it was benign by the time it got to me.

Too bad... I had cream cheese too.


Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 7:49 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
What is weird, Bob, is that I hardly use that e-mail account for anything. And yet, this is about the sixth virus e-mail I have received in the past two weeks.

Oh wait! I use it for ebay! Even so, my ebay activity is so minimal as to be almost non-existent. I mean, the account is not going to be in anybody's address book, I wouldn't think.

Bob2112
Member

06-12-2002

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 8:05 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dawg: Somebody you purchased from on eBay must have that address in their address book and they have probably sent all the virus emails you've been receiving. The virus will spoof the return address, so that person may not even know they have the worm and it could be waking up every day or two to send some more emails.

Abbynormal
Member

08-04-2001

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 9:23 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Dra, sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. I have zone alarm already cause you had told me to make sure and do that first way back in Dec. I think. I am a good minder. :-) Anyway it makes the computer run so slow and I am on cable modem. Does this mean anything? I also have norton but have never done the adaware thing. What does it do? Also I am about to ask the dumbest question EVER, but how do you get virus's? Is it only through email attachments or some other way also?

Egbok
Member

07-13-2000

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 9:47 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Help Mr Wizard!! Today when I turned my computer on I received this message:

SMART Failure Predicted on Hard Disk 0

Maxtor 9461U6 - (PM)

WARNING: Immediately back up your data & replace your hard disk drive. A failure may be imminent.

Press F1 to continue.

So, I pressed F1 to continue and my computer started up. Just a few minutes ago while I was typing an email, my computer froze and I had to shut down by holding in the CPU button until my computer shut down.

When I restarted my computer, I got the same message and pressed F1 to continue.

Am I in trouble here? Is my computer going to die? Any answers will be appreciated, even the ones that might make me laugh...thanks!




Bob2112
Member

06-12-2002

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 9:56 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Egbok: Your hard drive is going to die soon. Could be hours, days or weeks, but its internal diagnostics are warning you that something is wrong and, unfortunately, hard drives do not often fix themselves once they begin going downhill. In any case, you need to backup all your data files to either another hard drive, burn them to a CD or email them to an email account not on your computer (like Yahoo, hotmail, etc...).

If you get a new hard drive before the old one dies and transfer all your files successfully, you can avoid the pain of having to reinstall theoperating system, all your software and all your data.

Juju (and Big Dog) have done this successfully by just reading the instruction, otherwise places like BesyBuy could do it for a charge. If you want to try doing it yourself, I'm sure someone here wold be willing and have the time to try and talk you through it.


Egbok
Member

07-13-2000

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 10:07 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Thanks Spongie. I'll be taking it in for a new hard drive and transfer, etc. There are two computer repair places nearby who have been in business for a few years now, so I'd imagine they could help me as well as BestBuy which is nearby as well.

In the meantime, I'll start backing up some of the important files onto CD's...thanks for your help.




Juju2bigdog
Member

10-27-2000

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 11:05 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Good work, Eggie. You are wise to catch it early and take care of it immediately. It will save you many headaches in the future.

Don't forget to save your Favorites from Internet Explorer if you use that feature. I have a LOT and would be quite upset to lose them. (File>Import and Export)

Egbok
Member

07-13-2000

Monday, April 05, 2004 - 11:10 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh! Thanks Juju....I didn't even think of saving my Favorites!! And you're right, I would have been very upset to lose them...whew!, thanks again!!

Hippyt
Member

09-10-2001

Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 2:36 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Ok,I have something weird going on. In the last couple of days my monitor has started making this kinda, high pitched noise. It's not loud,but it's like a continuous beep,and it's driving me crazy. I know it's the monitor,because when I turn it off the noise stops.
It's giving me headaches! Any ideas?

Bob2112
Member

06-12-2002

Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 3:17 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
On the last episode of 24, there was a kinda, high pitched noise just before the data center exploded. Hope your problem is different.

Draheid
Moderator

09-09-2001

Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 3:54 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Hippyt: Sounds like something called a 'flyback' coil may be going out. This is a device that provides the 12-45K volts to drive your video display. It is a fairly common item to fail over time. The prices of monitors currently are low enough that repair would probably not be worthwhile. You may want to start looking for a replacement before it goes out completely.

Hope this helps.


Hippyt
Member

09-10-2001

Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 5:06 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Oh Holy Crikey!!!!!!!!!!! I thought that was gonna be the anwer!!!!
LOL Bob! As long as it doesn't explode during 24,I'll be ok!
Thanks Dra!

Wendo
Member

08-07-2000

Thursday, April 08, 2004 - 8:15 pm   Edit Post Move Post Delete Post View Post    
Draheid, can you recommend backup software for my PC running Windows XP? Thanks in advance!