Virus infestation problem

Broke my Mickey Mouse watch.. last time I looked at whatismyipaddress.com I was in East Java, Indonesia...

 

Could I try uninstalling and disconnecting all the devices I have which are connected to the computer by USB then connecting and installing them one by one, perhaps starting with the external drive? I'd have to disconnect the keyboard last.

 

Probably the way to go... Is your keyboard wireless?? And the wireless mouse plugs into it?? What other usb devices do you have plugged in??

 

I'm just about to turn in. Although the mouse is wireless the keyboard is connected via USB. I have lot's of stuff plugged in:

Printer
Scanner
Turntable
External Drive

I think that's all. I was thinking of buying a PS2 mouse in the morning. Should I?

I'll check for your reply in the morning.

 

Mice are cheap and probably don't hurt to have an extra around..

That's a ton of equipment.. start knocking it out til you find the problem. you might think about leaving some of it turned off until you need it and then unplug something before plugging in something else

 

Not going to hijack this thread, just wanted to say thanks for the information.
I don't fix virus ridden PC's much anymore, so when a friend brought her vista 64 home premium machine to fix i had to brush up on the latest programs.
Couldn't boot so i used MBAM and Spybot from Hirans boot15.2. That fixed enough to enable access to windows. Ran MBAM again in windows, then could access safe mode, ran MBAM again. finally started getting all clear logs, but IE and Chrome just didnt "feel" right so i started looking around at current virus/adware removal methods and found this thread. Ran the programs recommended on the first page and all is now well.

 

I am so glad you were able to clear your friends machine by reading the thread (check my signature).

I try my best to keep up with the latest stuff so if you ever need any help, just give a shout on this forum.

2oG

 

I haven't got the PS2 mouse yet. I removed the wireless USB thingie that works the mouse from they keyboard and stuck it in one of the computer's USB sockets. I then proceeded, via Device Manager, to remove the printer, scanner, turntable, keyboard and the external drive. One by one I plugged them back in but the external drive still isn't recognized.

Do I still need the PS2 mouse? The mouse is the only device I haven't removed yet.

NB I have seven USB sockets on the computer, four at the back and three at the front. I prefer to leave the front ones unused so that I don't have cables everywhere. I also have a USB hub (if that's what it's called) which uses one USB socket but has the scanner, printer and turntable plugged into its sockets.

I looked at Device Manager and under Ports (COM & LPT) it only shows Communications Port (COM1) and ECP Printer Port (LPT1). I couldn't find any mention of COM3. You may recall that somewhere along the line I got a message telling me that there was a problem detected with Multiport Communications Port (COM3

Does Multiport refer to my USB hub?

 

I think the reason for the ps2 mouse is so you could leave the wireless mouse out of the equation.. but probably really won't need it.

Take your Hub off line and keep the other stuff off for a while. Just hook up the mouse and usb drive to see if it will recognize the drive with all other stuff disconnected..

that way maybe you can narrow it down to a bad drive...

let me know.

2oG

 

Kafka, Look in your Device Manager:

Under:
Human Interface Devices

Left click: USB Input Device, click: properties, open Driver tab and update Driver

Do this for all USB Input Devices that are there.

 

I did this but all drivers were up to date.

 

OK, will it recognize the drive and assign it a letter??

 

This might be really significant. I only wish I could attach a screenshot.

At the top of Disk Management it shows -

Data (D)
System reserved
Win8Pro (C

In the lower pane it shows in the first block -

Disk 0 System Retrieval Win8Pro (C Data (D
Basic
Online

In the second block (underneath) it shows -

Disk 1 298.09 Gb
Basic Unallocated This is the external drive
Online

In the third block it shows -

CD-ROM
DVD (E

I clicked on the second block (external drive) but the drop down didn't give me the option of allocating a drive letter. Is all of the above significant?

PS I put spacings in this post but they don't appear. I hope you can work it out.

 

From your specs:

I have to say, I am lost on the win8 protocol but it appears that only 2 of your drives are showing up. C: is Drive 0, your boot disk and D: is your data disk drive 1. The third drive should carry a letter greater than E: which is your CD/DVD drive. It used to be L: and is 305 GB. I'll place a wager that your USB Drive went down but you should take it off, hook up your other stuff and see if you can see all of it. Then beg someone to let you check your USB drive on another computer, if you don't have another..

 

I'm really confused about the drive numbering? but evidently it can't allocate the external USB drive whatever it wants to call it

p.s. if it will allocate on another computer then you will have to look deeper into yours....

 

I was just sitting down and having a coffee and smoking my pipe when something came to me. A while back I did something which might have been rather stupid. For some time I had been using Synchredible to run scheduled backups of my C and D drives each evening. For some reason Synchredible started acting up so I decided to delete all the backup files on the external drive. I found that they wouldn't delete and it was then I did something which might have led to my current problem. Wait for it... I formatted the drive via My Computer. It occurs to me now that all the files on the drive were deleted, including any files other than my backups. Do you think this is the problem? I will chech on the manufacturer's website and let you know if I can get the files (if there are any) back.

 

Problem solved!!! My suspicions above were correct. I followed the instructions below (at the end of the page) and was able to allocate a drive letter to the external drive.

"If the drive is listed as Unknown or Unallocated in Disk Management, the drive is not properly formatted for use with this computer. If the drive was used with a Mac or another non-windows device it may be using an incompatible format.

WARNING: Any data on the drive will be erased in this process. ? Please backup any data on the drive before proceeding.

If the drive shows Unknown, right click on the word Unknown and choose Initialize. Follow the wizard, accepting the defaults. The drive should now be labeled Unallocated.

If the drive shows as Unallocated, right click on the word Unallocated and choose New Partition (2000/XP) or New Simple Volume (Vista/Win7). Follow the wizard, accepting the default settings. Clicking finish will begin the format process. The format will generally take 10-15min, but can vary depending on drive size. When the format is complete the drive can be found under My Computer labeled New Volume.

If you wish to change the name of the drive, right click on the for the drive icon and choose rename from the menu."

It seems that we are coming to the end of the line. When we started you told me that you'd help me come up with a good way of scheduling the backing up of my data drive (is there any point in backing up the C drive?. I'd like the new backup/synchronisation to overwrite the old one.