PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

[mauijim]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Thanks everyone..it's great to have all this support!!


PS..I did scan everything with Avast-both drive and external drive, plus bootscan...pretty sure it's got the lot but I'll do Malwarebytes as well just in case. Might even reinstall / rescan ex drive / move scanned stuff to cloud storage and format external drive too.

It depends on which variant of the SCVhost.exe virus you were infected with but.....this is an old virus and one of the ways they used to reinfect a system was to place folders on external media but use the autoplay feature to spread the infection. If you check the folders on external media they use .exe extension which is not a normal folder. As soon as you access the media is runs using Autoplay and the damn thing appears again.

For anyone thinking of a suitable anti-virus package there are two that I would personally recommend. ESET NOD32 or Smart Security. This is my personal favourite, it is lightweight in terms of system resource usage but it sits quietly in the background and does what it is supposed to do. Smart Security will also detect dodgy websites and terminate the website connection to prevent infection. It is also proactive in detection and will use advanced heuristic to detect potential viruses and PUPs (Potentially unwanted programs). AFAIK they have yet to miss an "in the wild" virus. Support is also excellent

Webroot SecureAnywhere is also excellent. They offer a lightweight scan engine that updates quickly and will detect all malware, spyware and viruses. I have used this on my machines but I have a multi 5 year licence with ESET and therefore chose to stay with that.

Either of these will give you real peace of mind when you're online and let's face it, most of us on here are online quite a lot!

Just a personal view from someone who worked in this sphere.

MJ

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Thanks everyone..it's great to have all this support!!


PS..I did scan everything with Avast-both drive and external drive, plus bootscan...pretty sure it's got the lot but I'll do Malwarebytes as well just in case. Might even reinstall / rescan ex drive / move scanned stuff to cloud storage and format external drive too.

[philnicandamy]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

good result in the end shep..pleased its all ok now

[mauijim]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

ok its not an HDD failure.

How can you say that with 100% certainty? I was assuming that Shepherdess had scanned her external HDD with Avast?

The symptoms she described indicated an intermittent data issue, HDD failure, SATA port issue etc.

I'll step aside on this one

MJ

EDIT: I just saw Shepherdess posted an update so thankfully my other post wasn't necessary - my pop-up killer killed the text when I tried to add a URL link!!

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Thankyou all but....( ) I think I've fixed it!

Just turned the house upside down for the box of bits I cannibalised from my previous PC..

Changed the SATA cable and used a different output on the motherboard....tada!!!!

That explains why it did it with the other drive too.. !! Intermittant so must be a dodgy connection...

I'm on Win7 now...

[SXGuy]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

ok its not an HDD failure.

This wouldnt cause avast to detect a virus. Your extenal HDD seems to be infected, which is transfering the infection to your windows system everytime its connected.

No point in reinstalling windows everytime this happens, virus' can lay dormant inside the boot sector, or similar places, which means even a quick format of a HDD will not remove a virus.

The virus you likely have sounds like its one in which it copies itself over and hides as system files. therefore when any prog like avast cleans your infection, windows wont start properly anymore.

My advice to you, would be this.

Load windows using a windows boot cd, hopefully you have one? if not, try pressing F8 when your pc boots up and select safe mode with networking, if that doesnt work, let me know and ill try to point you in the direction of where to obtain a boot cd for your windows version.

Once you are in your windows desktop, download and install ComboFix

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

This will take around 10 to 30 minutes depending on the level of infection.

This personally, is the best windows repair tool ive ever used, ive used others after getting rid of very nasty infections and nothing has ever fixed a system wide virus corruption better than ComboFix.

instructions on how to use are here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/comb...o-use-combofix

Save the log text it generates after and post here if you wish, it will give a good indication of what you were infected with.

Once this has ran, do a full virus scan of your external HDD, its vital you clear any virus before you restart your pc.

Once thats done, take your boot cd out and restart your pc.

Fingers crossed, you will have a working operating system again.

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Have fun at the tip MJ...might see you there..I'll be the one hurling a PC tower into the skip...

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

That's the odd thing Mauijim..the one that's failed now is pretty new. I installed the original version of Win 7 on it a year ago, then disconnected it to save as backup and it's not been in use till last week. It's a Seagate Barracuda.
The XP drive I'm on now is a Hitachi and did the same thing last week, but seems OK for now since I formatted & reinstalled XP...this one is about 3 years old and was moved from my old machine after a major mobo failure.


Talk about The Butterfly effect....All this started because of bloody Google constantly putting up a security error on IE 8...so I installed Safari and probably coincidentally that was when the probs started.

[mauijim]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Hi Mauijim,
Thanks for looking in
You're right, it was SCVhost exe, the virus not the legit process. It named it on the affected web page code, followed by a huge string of code.

I did a custom full install and I formatted the drive first...I have 2 drives, the Win7 one and the XP one which I'm on now. I just switch by changing over the SATA cable...so they can't "see" each other.

I've been into the BIOS to reconfig boot priority settings..it's not seeing the drive at all, just the CDROM (even when the SATA cable's plugged in )

It's an ASUS mobo, AMD Phenom II X4 840 Processor, 3.21 GHz, 4GB RAM

Well my initial thought was HDD failure. It could be the drive was on its last legs and the problems you described earlier are indicative of that issue. Obviously without being sat in front of your PC I cannot be 100% certain.

I cannot see it being a MOBO issue i.e. Dodgy SATA port as you are swapping the SATA cable manually and it works for XP.

How old is the potentially faulty HDD and what make/model is it?

MJ

PS I am going out for a visit to the local recycling centre now...oh joy...so may not be around for a couple of hours.

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Hi Mauijim,
Thanks for looking in
You're right, it was SCVhost exe, the virus not the legit process. It named it on the affected web page code, followed by a huge string of code.

I did a custom full install and I formatted the drive first...I have 2 drives, the Win7 one and the XP one which I'm on now. I just switch by changing over the SATA cable...so they can't "see" each other.

I've been into the BIOS to reconfig boot priority settings..it's not seeing the drive at all, just the CDROM (even when the SATA cable's plugged in )

It's an ASUS mobo, AMD Phenom II X4 840 Processor, 3.21 GHz, 4GB RAM

[mauijim]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Shepherdess

Can I just ask a few questions about the problem before I offer any advice.

1. Are you sure the code to which you refer is SVCHOST.EXE based? This file is critical to windows no matter which version you are using. Perhaps you meant SCVHOST.EXE? Notice the reversal of V and C (mainly for other readers here) I am not being a smart arse I am just asking you to confirm in case it really is a typo or just false positives.
2. When you upgraded to Win7 did you "upgrade" or did you format and install a totally fresh version and did you install on the old HDD that previously ran Win XP
3. How many Hard drives are on your PC?
4. What is your BIOS type - AMI Phoenix etc. This should show at boot or if you get a bank screen then perhaps hit DEL F2 or F11 (this varies but screen should show "For setup..F2 etc")



XP is still a very stable and worthy OS, it may not be as flashy as Win 7 but it is still right up there. I have many clients who use XP and a lot of the big companies still use it.

Never run CHKDSK or SCANDISK they are the work of the Devil Windows will often insist on running this but try and resist it. This causes more data errors and disk failures than I've had hot meals.

If you let me know this information I can try to help.

MJ

[PlanB]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

It gets worse!!!

Did a full scan and it found more bugs brought from my external drive.
Avast told me to restart and do a boot scan which I did....

This morning...blinking cursor on black screen at startup.
Went into BIOS...drive not detected
Booted from Win 7 disk...drive/op system not detected

Now this is exactly what happened on the OTHER (XP) drive after doing a disk scan, so there seems to be a common factor here..ie intense activity at boot level on either drive is buggering something up.
So now I'm wondering if it's a hardware issue with mobo or RAM???
Any ideas anyone before I get the hammer out?

(I'm currently back on the old drive with reinstalled XP. I've uninstalled AVAST before it get chance to update, just in case it's a dodgy version. Now installed MS Security Essentials.)

Unsurprisingly you may not consider Plan B as the obvious choice to help with this IT problem

But I appealed to our member MauiJim for help when having similar issues with my Windows vista, and he suggested that there was a definite connection between a disk scan and the blackouts. It happenend every time Windows Updates did their own thing - so I disabled that function and it never happenend again

I'll PM him to read this thread

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Yep all backed up PF

[pompeyfaith]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??

Shep,

Did you backup all your wanted files to an external hard-drive and format before install?

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: PC probs..Knoppix Time...cheapest Windows 7??



That day is fast approaching....