Major hard drive problems

Hi all

I've posted this here, as I can only think the problems with my PC are down to the hard drive. This is a bit long so please bear with me!!

System info:

PC running Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 1
Manufacturer: Sony Vaio
CPU: Pentium 4 2.6GHz, 512MB RAM, 120Gb hard drive

About a week ago, I had numerous infected files in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory caused by a trojan (download.trojan nex b) on my PC that Norton Antivirus couldn't remove. At the time, I had my hard drive partitioned into C and D.

I couldn't seem to install anything either, as the installation would always crash right at the very end (when it's creating the shortcuts or .Ink files). After trying virtually everything, I took my hard drive round to a friend's house for them to back up my data on their Mac computer and decided to reformat the drive completely when I got home.

I used the recovery disk that came with my computer and chose the option to delete the content from both partitions. On running Windows, everything seemed fine so I immediately set up my internet connection and set up Norton (which was included with the recovery disk). I ran the Live Updates and then a full system scan and within about 10 minutes, it detected two worms and a trojan (trojan.downloader), which it automatically deleted. I can't think where these came from as I haven't put my backed up data on the PC yet and I thought I had wiped everything??

Anyway, there were also problems with the internet, in that I could easily get to sites through Google, which I had set to my homepage, but on typing in exact URLs in the Address Bar, the sites just wouldn't load. I tried downloading some anti-spyware but when I tried to install it, I was having the same problem as before - it appears to be working ok until it gets to the end of the installation and then freezes. This seems to be the case with anything I try to install.

I also tried running another scan on Norton, but if I try to initiate it, Norton crashes as well. However, it did perform the scheduled scan this morning and found nothing.

I've now tried reformatting the hard drive using the recovery disk a total of 4 times and it's driving me crazy! The last option I chose was to remove the partition and just have all the data in C:\ but this hasn't made any difference.

I ran a free online virus scan at Symantec and Panda but neither of them showed any virii either. Someone suggested that I might have a boot sector virus, but why isn't that being detected??

I'm not a techie so don't know much in the way of MS DOS/Configuring etc but any help would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Louise

 

Before you go online make sure your windows firewall is turned on. It is off by default in service pack 1 but service pack 2 fixed this. This has happened a couple of times when I forgot to turn it on and got lambasted trogans and worms. Also get the critical updates right away when you get online. Hope this helps. Welcome to MG.

 

Thank you Steve - where do I need to look to make sure it's turned on?

 

Go to start-control panel-network connections and right click on your connection-properties-advanced and make sure you check the firewall box. Your connection should say firewalled in the network connections now.

 

hmm bootsector viruses....sounds logical. You say you dont know much about DOS but its really not that hard to use. It just looks intimidating. First backup anything you need (which right now is probably nothing) then, see in ya box with all your computer stuff (recovery disks, etc) if you have a Windows CD. If so go here and follow these directions to rebuild your MBR Tell us if anything you try works! Good luck!

 

Thank you both for your help.

So far, I've just turned the firewall on and don't seem to be experiencing problems, but I'm not getting my hopes up just yet.

I took a look at the article about creating a boot disk, so I'm going to try that too.

I'll let you know how I get on!