WOW - you guys/gals are good. You have forgotton more this morning than I ever knew about computers.
Question - can external hard drives get 'infected' too? Wouldn't that defeat the backup idea? Just curious.
Jeff
Any PC Geeks Here
by Decided 16 Replies latest jw friends
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TD
Jeff,
99% of all infections must reside on the boot partition where the registry and system files are.
One of the standard "tricks" that some IT people use to clean up an infected system is to yank the hard drive from the infected machine, put it in an external hard drive enclosure and then scan it from a clean system. (I prefer to boot the system from a live CD instead) Either way, the corrupted Windows installation is treated only as data (i.e. None of those files are executed) and any malware files will be harmless because they are not in any way, registered to run.
Also, one of the easiest ways to get rid of a virus is to simply do a rollback to a point before the infection. (Accessories --> System Tools --> System Restore) This doesn't actually remove the malware files; it renders them harmless by unregistering them and/or any vectors pointing to them.
There are a tiny handful of cooties that can reside on an external hard drive, (Like an infected MS Office document template) but comparatively, these are mostly just annoyances.
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Decided
Thanks for all the good infomation you folks gave me. I defraged the hard drive and it booted up but after I closed it down again it didn't boot. I got it to boot again later but I think it has a problem with the disk drive, maybe.
Ken P.
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Decided
Thanks for all the good infomation you folks gave me. I defraged the hard drive and it booted up but after I closed it down again it didn't boot. I got it to boot again later but I think it has a problem with the disk drive, maybe.
Ken P.
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HintOfLime
Just a tip in case you need it, Decided - I had a similar problem a few months ago. I ended up having to buy a new hard drive, and had a lot of trouble getting my data off the broken drive.
It turned out in my case that by putting the drive inside a few plastic zip-lock bags (to keep moisture out), and freezing it, I was able to recover most of my data while the drive was cold. (IBM has identified 14 reasons why freezing a drive helps - but it mostly has to do with broken solder connections contracting and re-connecting.) It doesn't always work, but if your drive refuses to read data from the drive entirely, or makes lots of clicking sounds and reads data off very slowly, it's worth a shot.
- Lime
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TD
....I think it has a problem with the disk drive, maybe.
Start --> My Computer --> (Right Click on) Local Disk C: --> Properties --> Tools Tab --> Error Checking --> Check Now.
System will reboot to a blue screen. Keep an eye on what goes on. If there are a lot of errors, (Bad handles in the file table, etc.) the drive is likely failing.
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slipnslidemaster
Ahhh...good ol' clicking sounds. Hate them.