geekwannabe
2011-08-22, 02:57
Howdy, guys (and gals!),
I'm all new to this stuff and I'm really thrilled to find your forum. I have great hopes, and I promise to be ultra-patient and follow all the rules!! :cowboy:
Now for the tough part. I came to this section (Spybot-S&D) for two reasons:
1- I have used SSD on another computer that has other problems, which I will address later, after this present subject is closed, as the STICKY (where I got the link for this area) instructs. In my previous experience with SSD, it has consistently done everything that I could do with other programs, and more. So I am rather impressed with SSD.
2- I got the link for this area at this page:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=288
...and being new to this forum, I'm a bit lost, don't know my way around and hope I'm posting in the right place.
On the page linked above, I read the following:
Please do not use a usb/external hard drive that has been connected to the infected machine to transfer media.
This caught my attention. I am not literally doing that (usb/ehd ctd. to inf. mach.) but I have done something similar and opposite. I'll explain. I am currently typing on an XP Professional system that has very few problems (KOW) but it's frame is broken. That's a different story.
My concern today is with a laptop XP Home Edition system that seems to have succumbed to a very serious virus. The mouse works, I can turn it on and off (but it takes about 20 times longer to do anything, like DEFRAG, delete files, or change settings), and my desktop is visible, however, the icons showing do not all look like normal. All the larger programs I have installed over the past few years have icons that look like an etch-a-sketch, that is a rectangle with a few small knobs outside, sort of like a cheap picture of an old television. When I try to start any such program, I get a popup window alerting me that the shortcut does not exist. One tech guru told me he suspects a virus changed my permission settings, preventing me from using such programs as MSOffice, Explorer, Adobe Reader, etc. I cannot start a browser on that system (which is why I'm not using to write this!) nor can I start any loaded programs, with one exception. I ran Norton Ghost on it, trying to get a backup, and it FAILED. I'm sorry if this is too long, but there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
Long story short (I'm trying, okay?) I've used a trick device to connect the hard drive from my infected system (I removed it physically) to this XP Pro system, read as an external drive. Doing so, I have found that I can read and open selected Word and WordPad files from that drive on this XP Pro machine and save them. But I can only move about 20 at a time, apparently. I have been using avast! full scan of a custom folder on each group of files before I save them. After doing several groups, avast! has found no infections. I have been told that a small minority of dangerous viruses can get by undetected. But I don't know what to do with that information!
Plus, what I am copying is not "media" as I understand it, but Word files (not movies, video, audio tracks, or photos, but there are a lot of "screen shots" obtained by Shift->PrintScreen function in XP).
Therefore, it seems to me this rule, "Please do not use a usb/external hard drive that has been connected to the infected machine to transfer media.," does not apply to what I'm doing, as I am not connecting the USB device to the infected machine. I am connecting the infected machine's hard drive to THIS machine (which is not infected), via USB as an external hard drive. BTW, the infected hard drive is currently not connected at all. It's in a box, waiting for me, patiently. Hard drives are very patient, even when they're infected, unlike people! I have been connecting it only to move scanned files into a new folder in My Documents.
I would like to supply you with the DDS log you request for analysis, but I'm not sure how I can do that. Can I follow the steps on the linked page to get a DDS log from my infected HD via the USB device I've been using? (Is the DDS log already on that HD that I removed?) Is that okay with you?
Or, should I re-install the HD into my Asus laptop with XP Home and do the DDS log there? If that is better for you, I can perhaps save the log in a file on that drive using NotePad (the only text program that works on it any more) and then download it to this Dell system with XP Pro, to paste into the appropriate post in this forum.
Please, if there is something I missed or some other thing I should do, just let me know.
Thanks.
Does anyone have a suggestion for me, as to what other thread I could read that covers my situation?
------------------------------------------------------------
Since nobody is answering me, I'm beginning to think this has already been discussed. I used the search feature and did not find any other threads about this situation.
Am I missing something??
I'm all new to this stuff and I'm really thrilled to find your forum. I have great hopes, and I promise to be ultra-patient and follow all the rules!! :cowboy:
Now for the tough part. I came to this section (Spybot-S&D) for two reasons:
1- I have used SSD on another computer that has other problems, which I will address later, after this present subject is closed, as the STICKY (where I got the link for this area) instructs. In my previous experience with SSD, it has consistently done everything that I could do with other programs, and more. So I am rather impressed with SSD.
2- I got the link for this area at this page:
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?t=288
...and being new to this forum, I'm a bit lost, don't know my way around and hope I'm posting in the right place.
On the page linked above, I read the following:
Please do not use a usb/external hard drive that has been connected to the infected machine to transfer media.
This caught my attention. I am not literally doing that (usb/ehd ctd. to inf. mach.) but I have done something similar and opposite. I'll explain. I am currently typing on an XP Professional system that has very few problems (KOW) but it's frame is broken. That's a different story.
My concern today is with a laptop XP Home Edition system that seems to have succumbed to a very serious virus. The mouse works, I can turn it on and off (but it takes about 20 times longer to do anything, like DEFRAG, delete files, or change settings), and my desktop is visible, however, the icons showing do not all look like normal. All the larger programs I have installed over the past few years have icons that look like an etch-a-sketch, that is a rectangle with a few small knobs outside, sort of like a cheap picture of an old television. When I try to start any such program, I get a popup window alerting me that the shortcut does not exist. One tech guru told me he suspects a virus changed my permission settings, preventing me from using such programs as MSOffice, Explorer, Adobe Reader, etc. I cannot start a browser on that system (which is why I'm not using to write this!) nor can I start any loaded programs, with one exception. I ran Norton Ghost on it, trying to get a backup, and it FAILED. I'm sorry if this is too long, but there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
Long story short (I'm trying, okay?) I've used a trick device to connect the hard drive from my infected system (I removed it physically) to this XP Pro system, read as an external drive. Doing so, I have found that I can read and open selected Word and WordPad files from that drive on this XP Pro machine and save them. But I can only move about 20 at a time, apparently. I have been using avast! full scan of a custom folder on each group of files before I save them. After doing several groups, avast! has found no infections. I have been told that a small minority of dangerous viruses can get by undetected. But I don't know what to do with that information!
Plus, what I am copying is not "media" as I understand it, but Word files (not movies, video, audio tracks, or photos, but there are a lot of "screen shots" obtained by Shift->PrintScreen function in XP).
Therefore, it seems to me this rule, "Please do not use a usb/external hard drive that has been connected to the infected machine to transfer media.," does not apply to what I'm doing, as I am not connecting the USB device to the infected machine. I am connecting the infected machine's hard drive to THIS machine (which is not infected), via USB as an external hard drive. BTW, the infected hard drive is currently not connected at all. It's in a box, waiting for me, patiently. Hard drives are very patient, even when they're infected, unlike people! I have been connecting it only to move scanned files into a new folder in My Documents.
I would like to supply you with the DDS log you request for analysis, but I'm not sure how I can do that. Can I follow the steps on the linked page to get a DDS log from my infected HD via the USB device I've been using? (Is the DDS log already on that HD that I removed?) Is that okay with you?
Or, should I re-install the HD into my Asus laptop with XP Home and do the DDS log there? If that is better for you, I can perhaps save the log in a file on that drive using NotePad (the only text program that works on it any more) and then download it to this Dell system with XP Pro, to paste into the appropriate post in this forum.
Please, if there is something I missed or some other thing I should do, just let me know.
Thanks.
Does anyone have a suggestion for me, as to what other thread I could read that covers my situation?
------------------------------------------------------------
Since nobody is answering me, I'm beginning to think this has already been discussed. I used the search feature and did not find any other threads about this situation.
Am I missing something??