No I definitely had a virus. I just went around it by booting up a brand new drive. It is just that my motherboard hasn’t kept pace with technology and I had to slow it down for it to work.
I see. I had the free McAffee system before, which basically amounted to a relentless commercial- practically a virus in itself. I want to be a little more cautious this time and am willing to buy something, but I am not sure which way to go. But McAffee is out too- too annoying.
Norton’s better now, but I really think the free solutions are sufficient. As always, I recommend Avira Antivir. There’s a link in the stickied thread you mentioned, as well as other antiviruses and helpful software you can use. If you use Windows XP, I recommend SuRun and ProcessGuard. The former’s functionality is built into later versions of Windows, but no one seems to want to make a program like the latter.
So far I am going with AVG. I’ll look into the other suggestions.
But now… I have no audio whatsoever. I thought it was a matter of not having the proper accessories installed, but installing things like Adobe flash and shockwave hasn’t helped. Any tips on tracking down a lack of audio on a post-virus new Windows install would be appreciated.
AVG FREE is good.
No need to pay for anything.
Now then, regarding audio, am I to assume Windows XP? Then try this:
Click Start menu, click control panel, IF under Category View click Classic View, click system, click the “Hardware” tab, Click “Device Manager”.
There should be a list of hardware devices and the ones which can’t operate due to missing drivers, etc. should have a Yellow “!” Yield sign thing.
Look under the “sound, video and game controllers” heading and hopefully fing a yellow “!”.
Double click it.
Insert Windows XP CD.
Click Update Driver.
Follow directions from there… if need more help post here again.
Ok. I followed your advice up to ‘install driver.’ The Windows XP disk is in, but it does not find the drivers and they are not installed. I guess I’ll see if I can google them…
Try to find the i386 folder on the xp disc…
FWIW, it is ‘Other devices’, ‘multimedia audio controller’ that has the “!”. Maybe the driver for that isn’t available on the XP disk. Everything under sound, video and game controllers looks fine.
It is distracting over here lately, so I am off and on the problem intermittently, fyi.
ETA: But under ‘sound and audio device properties’, it says ‘none’.
Microsoft Security Essentials is both free and excellent with both anti-virus and anti-malware. http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/?WT.mc_id=MSCOM_S_US_EC_113LMUS004198
FWIW, I have tried to use the Microsoft XP ‘repair’ option. Before I had this new F drive installed, I thought there was a problem with the virus preventing me from using it.
Now, I have fresh Windows on the F drive. I’m trying to see if I can go back and repair the D drive. But I am not having any luck with that either. Booting up from CD gives me the choice to repair. I choose that, it asks for the ‘administrator password’, and then I just get a DOS prompt for the D drive. D:WINDOWS_
and a blinking cursor. I don’t know what to do with that, I guess I was hoping for a program that would repair the disk. Is it supposed to do that?
ETA: When I installed the F drive I removed the A floppy drive. Could disconnecting that have disconnected anything else?
Also: I can now access the D drive again, I just can’t boot from it. The drivers must be on their somewhere, but alas, I am also having trouble importing my old settings. I think that is because I suck at this, not any virus. Argg
If you can’t boot from D:, then watch closely when booting it might be “Press F-12” or something like that. From there you should be able to set boot order.
But Windows should still be able to see the drive even if you didn’t boot from it.
If so… the best option MIGHT be just saving all your shit to another drive and re-installing windows.
You can copy the data like emails and mp3s and movies and stuff back pretty easily. Assuming you have your other program discs those are just a time-sinc to re-install.
If I was there I could help you more, but I’m not even on here very often.
This is LAST RESORT and I HATE TO RECOMMEND IT.
But I can tell you for a fact, that some windows installs do get so screwed that it’s the best option. 
I mean, and I really mean it, back up all your shit first.
fuck
It shouldn’t, and no-one should ever, ever want a floppy drive; however, I believe most Windows before Vista stupidly require one for installing SATA drivers. Possibly your latest install of Windows can’t find these, or they are corrupted.
As far as installing any OS is concerned it is only reasonable to expect it to take 40 minutes at minimum, transferring 4GB approx and all the probing/testing of hardware naturally takes a time; and installing Windows 7 for a friend only took an hour, so I’m surprised that XP would take longer.
So confusing… what do you really have that you really need to save?
Think it over and save it…
Then just re-install windows XP.
Seriously just backup your bookmarks, tax returns, what else do you have?
And go back to XP.
What I want the most is to be able to boot from the old drive, with the old settings and programs in place.
Windows Restore seems like the answer, but 1) what time I have had I have spent backing things up first 2) Running Restore from the Windows CD leads to a DOS prompt. I don’t know if I entered the wrong admin password or what, but I don’t know where to go from there.
- Restore looks like an option in the Start menu, but I don’t know if there is a wrong way to go about it that results in erasing everything.
I’ve taken the hardware approach to circumventing the virus, and in time the new stuff will be integrated just fine. But for now it would all run better booting the old drive under the old settings.
I’m going to join the munged binary file not a virus crowd. The system behavior you describe is not typical of what modern viruses or malware do. You need to slave the drive save your impt files, format and re-install windows.
Ah, but if I can repair windows without formatting it will save me some hassle. I think Monday I will have time to do it, whichever route I take.
Is there a site that will walk me step-by-step through a Restore?
I’ve had a fairly poor track record with repair and restore attempts if system binaries are damaged. 90% of the time it’s time wasted before I had to bite the bullet and format and reinstall.
Here - Good luck!