multiple problems - caused by "virus?" incl. i/o device error.

[evath]

Hello all,

Hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving. Mine has been quite harrowing, esp. in light of the fact that I have a deadline on a book translation and am about to lose the last of my wits.

I have a special request for MAJOR HELP as I have been at this recovery for about 3 days without success. Here in a nutshell is the sitch:

I recently downloaded what I thought was "music" and it must have been a virus or a trojan or some sort of malware.
Suddenly everything started going haywire: events i.e.:

1. I can no longer log-on to my email at any site (peoplepc, yahoo, earthlink, hotmail, etc.), (I did, however, get a popup window that invited me to use yahoo as my default mail client and although I can't visit mail.yahoo directly, when I opt to "contact us" from anyone's website, the yahoo singapore mail client opens my email... and while i can't send attachments, and can only compose 1 email at a time, I have been able to kinda circumvent the email catastrophe).

2. My Symantec antivirus/firewall have been completely disabled, I tried downloading "AVG Antivirus" but I can't download the virus updates and so it is essentially useless.

3. I decided I'd back up my data and reinstall XP. But I can't back up my data to the CDR because I get the error: "The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error." I can, however, play CDs & DVDs, movies, games, etc., from the CD (matshita DF310) but I can't back anything up to it, or copy anything to it (I use nero 6 enterprise ed.)

4. So then I decided..."to heck with this nonsense. I give up on my data" and I set the boot order in my bios to boot from CD only to reinstall XP, but then I got a boot disk error. Now I can't even I give up on my data and reinstal the opsys. Can anyone make any suggestions before I finish pulling out the last of my hair?

I'd rather not lose my data.... ;-)

Thanks so much

E~

 

[firewolfrl]

Happy Holidays to you too.
Now to Business
First you need to open the HOST file (there is no extension) with Notepad
C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc
Then check and see if this is the only entry:
127.0.0.1 localhost
This should be your only entry unless you have used spywareblaster to redirect spyware
If you see other entries that list Avast and other antivirus software as 127.0.0.1 then you need to delete those entries
Save as (all files) this file needs to be save without an extension as HOST

if it does save as HOST.txt then just rename to HOST


After you do this go to:

http://www.download.com/Spybot-Search-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10401314.html?tag=lst-0-1

Download Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4


Then install the program

This is all for now till you can run Spybot


Do you have another computer you can put the drive in as a secondary drive?
If you do put the drive in that computer and run a antivirus scan on the drive first then pull the needed data off the drive.

Good luck

 

[evath]

Hi,
Last things first... I do not have a second computer to do what you suggest. It had occurred to me that maybe this could be a solution to my woe's however, being new to this area, I have few friends I could impose upon for this and the only one I felt comfortable enough to ask, said she is "afraid" they'll get infected also... such is the mind of the non-technical layman. If my computer techie guy should ever rear his head, maybe I could suggest this to him. But I've been waiting on him for over 2 weeks for another issue, so...

As for the rest, I did as you said and HOST comes up clean - Only the line you said should appear was there.

I am downloading spybot as I write. I can only hope any 'virus patterns, etc.' are already resident in the download, otherwise, there could be trouble...
Once that is installed, I will run it.

I await your next suggestion.

Thanks

E~

 

[evath]

Ok.
I ran spybot.
747 bad products found.
What exactly does THAT mean?
It did not give a listing of what they were
or what it did with them.
What now?
thanks
E~

 

[firewolfrl]

Alot of those bad products are cookies
as for the number of cookies I would suggest you use CCleaner (short for crap cleaner)

http://www.ccleaner.com/

this will help in cleaning your temp files and internet cache which from the looks of it is full...(this in itself will cause major issues)

I also recommend you install Windows Defender

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...e7-da2b-4a6a-afa4-f7f14e605a0d&displaylang=en

with this set of software your computer should be running better

 

[evath]

Hi,
So... spybot did it's thing automatically and I can't do anything manually, as far as I can tell. I can't download any updates as the error message I get is: "Error retrieving update info file! Socket Error # 10061 connection refused."
I will ad the other problems you suggest...
but nothing seems to have changed. I still can't access email at mail.yahoo.com (says the page can't be displayed)
arrrrrgh!
Will adding these other 2 programs help the issues I mentioned having in my first post?
Thanks again
E~

 

[firewolfrl]

you have to clean the internet cache

use ccleaner or follow this sites directions

http://www.shepherd.edu/compserv/prevent/internetch.htm

and yes they will help
especially ccleaner

 

[BadBigBen]

Also sounds like your WINSOCK settings got corrupted...

in a RUNBOX (or Command Line Interface) type:

netsh winsock reset catalog

and hit return... Reboot... then try to update AVG AntiSpyware and SpyBot S&D again...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[evath]

Hi ben and wolf,

I have tried what you have suggested and rebooted, but nothing has changed.
I performed the clean sweep first as wolf recommended.
Now I am seeing that Nero6 has not opted to write to CD-R so I figure that must the problem with my not being able to backup my data. I reinstalled Nero, but nothing changed. Since I've only had this PC about 2 weeks, I have not used Nero yet, so I can't tell you if something is wrong because of the virus, or because it was wrong at installation/build of machine.
In the read-features, CD-R and DVD and DVD-R are selected so that does explain how I can read my CDs and play games, but not copy to the CD-R.
This might be a hardware malfunction, or maybe pins are wrong at the DVD connection in the box.
I tried to get help from AVG for the virus patterns but they were as recalcitrant and unwilling to help as a police officer that is hell-bent on giving you a citation is to stop writing!
I went to Windows to get the update Wolf suggested but the pre-screening process indicates that I don't have supported software in my machine.
My tech guy is out of commission for about 2 weeks and I have a serious deadline that I am going to miss unless I get this problem resolved.
Sorry for writing war & peace. Phones are so much speedier.
Thanks in advance for any and all help!
Evangeline

 

[firewolfrl]

I suggest you get a new tech guy or pay someone to get it working for you

 

[linney]

These talk about Proxy Settings and Firewalls.


Spybot S&D Socket Error #10061

http://www.safer-networking.org/en/faq/10.html

http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?p=4810#post4810

http://www.google.com/search?q="Err...t:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

These mention your other error.

You receive an I/O device error message when you try to use your CD drive in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/891894

http://www.google.com/search?q="The...t:*&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

http://groups.google.com/groups?q="...&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&sa=N&tab=wg

Alternate ways to re-install XP if you can't boot from CD.

See - "You Receive a File Copy Error During Setup"

310064 - HOW TO: Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation When You Upgrade from Windows 98 or Windows Me

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310064&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

307848 - HOW TO: Start Setup from MS-DOS in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307848&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Cannot logon to winxp...losing lots of valuable documents
thread779-975236

 

[ArizonaGeek]

One thing I havent seen a suggestion for (and suprised since it is an easy thing) was to boot into SafeMode then run the SpyBot program, mark it all for deletion when it's done and make a note of the name of any Spyware/Malware it found. There may be other specific instructions to getting rid of it. The CEO of our company downloaded a nasty spyware program, SpyBot told me the name of it and I just Googled it to find out how to remove it. SpyBot was able to remove it while in SafeMode but as soon as I rebooted, it came back which meant there was an installer someplace else. It wasnt easy to fix but after an hour I got it all removed and was able to back up his important files and reinstall Windows.

Good luck!