Topic: Have I been Hacked?

[Charlie8311]

Oh yeah.. there is another thing I forgot to mention.  When my PC originally started to freeze up I tried to go to an earlier restore point because I thought it might have been a Windows update causing the rpoblem.  When I did this and then rebooted a message came up in the right corner that I think said a driver for the Harddrive was being installed...

I also had a similar kind of thing happen when my other harddrive started having problems before this new issue --- it was the secondary internal auxiliary harddrive at that time -- the PC kept treating that harddrive like it was a new device or something.. the "autoplay" thing would come up asking what I wanted to do with the drive and that drive was running really slow and I think it was causing my PC to freeze before I disconnected it. That's when I reformatted my primary drive and it was working ok for a couple weeks until this new issue.

[Charlie8311]

Something I just noticed.  I am trying to "tune up" the drive I was trying to reformat and install windows on by using it as a USB drive... and something I noticed about both this drive and the other when I looked at them using the Disk management in WINXP -- both drives have said that something like 48 GB is allocated and the rest is unallocated.. though in the one I tried to install windows there is also a partition for the Windows VISTA OS.. but I just thought that seemed like a strange coincidence but maybe this is something normal that I am unaware of? I am going to try to reformat this here and then install windows on it again.

[Charlie8311]

I tried to take the harddrive out again and hooked it up using USB adapter and I tried to reformat it and correct any errors with the tune up software.. then tried to reinstall the software. Now when I try to install my PC is freezing WHILE the software is installing every time. 

[Samker]

Hi Charlie and sorry for delay, I was have some responsibility outside of SCF.

Anyway, this is very unusual PC problem.  

Can you please:

1. Run Kaspersky or BitDefender Online AntiVirus Scan: http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,734.0.html

2. Download & run HijackThis: http://scforum.info/index.php/topic,785.0.html

3. Provide us logs from HijackThis & AntiVirus Online Scan


I'll wait your reply (with logs).

Best Regards,

S.

[Charlie8311]

Hi Samker.. I think it might be hardware related. 

I took all the RAM out but one stick and it finally installed the Windows and booted up... But I tried each different stick in there and they all worked.. so none of them failed by themselves.

I am wondering if it might be power related or if one of the slots is faulty. I don't know what to do now.. but it's working just with less RAM.

[Samker]

Hi Samker.. I think it might be hardware related. 

I took all the RAM out but one stick and it finally installed the Windows and booted up... But I tried each different stick in there and they all worked.. so none of them failed by themselves.

I am wondering if it might be power related or if one of the slots is faulty. I don't know what to do now.. but it's working just with less RAM.

That's good, I was already suggest you that possibility.

Don't how many RAM sticks you have, but it will be good (for example) if you have 4 to try boot with 3 different in all combination's. Also maybe we have just problem with some "dirt".

Anyway, I think that we also have some other problem with that HDD installation every time when you connect them?? For any case provide us HJT and Kaspersky logs.

Regards,

S.


 

[hazedaze]

Hey Fella,

Dont know if you have resolved your problems or not, but I had similar issues but not on a media centre, It turned out to be a couple of duff sectors on the HDD where the PC was doing something and lost power so corrupted that small portion of the drive, Use drive fitness test or something along those lines this program will move any duff sector areas to the end of the HDD table so Windows wont address them and cause a BOD, the tool is a manufacturer tool so dependent on the make of your drive go see if there are any low level tools you can use I know there to be a tool for each of the major manufacturers out there, If you cant find them post here and I will sedn you the links.

Also as Samker and yourself highlighted although the memory sticks are working I have seen issues with work machines where one of the Memory sticks may be droping a I/O bit due to power isssues or more likely the age of the stick espcially if the machine gets hammered being a Media centre I guess it does streaming e.t.c so I would consider it a "Work Horse". it's the same as our work machines they get left on 24/7 hence why they develop these stange little faults although it does make for interesting fault finding!!!

Hope this helps...Any updates let us know we may be bale to assist further...

[manual2100]

maybee defected ram.. replace it