HD failure or virus?

Puggs · Mar 8, 2007

ell Inspiron 8200
P-4 1.6 GHz
MEM 384 MB

XP Home SP2

Not sure what is going on (HD failure or virus), at one time thought it was a virus. I do have Zone Alarm and Avast installed and running. It all started when I did some maintance.
Used some Registry clean up tools to help me. Did not notice any problems for some time (CRS Can't Remember S**t, getting old I guess) 2 weeks maybe, Than started having problems, continued to get worse as time went on. File corrupt errors to blue screen "stop: C0000218 Unknown hard Error". I have had other stop messages also Stop:0000007A
Finally home from vacation with access to another PC and the time to do something went to "MajorGeeks.com".
I have been searching posts for similar problems and trying to work through the solutions, but not having any success.
I started to go through the "Malware Removal procedures"
1) "uninstall Malware via Add/Remove Programs. Also removed unneeded or unwanted programs.
2) Set MS config to normal startup. Do not have Norton.
3) ran CClearner (which I had from last time 12-2005) in both Safe and normal mode (I think CRS).
"The hurryier I go the behinder I get" Trying not to get too frustrated.:cry

Each time I reboot it sounds like it is booting from the CD from Dell, which is an OS Reinstalation CD (MS Windows XP Home Edition from Dell).

I wanted to run scandsk to check the disk for errors but do not see the file, instead I am running defrag in Safe mode. I get a BLUE Screen! "Stop:0:000000F4" Right now I really don't want to start it without some direction from the experts!

TIA ss

chaslang · Mar 9, 2007

I think you need to post in the Hardware or Software Forums. Your problems do not sound like malware. It is quite possible you just messed up your OS while playing around with registry cleaners. Did you make backups before doing that? Perhaps you should can just restore what you changed.

It's up to you how you want to proceed but if you want to pursue a malware course, you will have to complete the READ & RUN ME and attach the 6 requested logs. Also not, you should not be using OLD versions of any programs (like CCleaner) you should be checking to make sure you have the versions in the links given in the READ & RUN ME. If not, download and install the current versions.

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HD failure or virus?

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chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member