Author Topic: Computor Freezes solid......? (Read 1587 times)

TM7 · « **on:** December 14, 2005, 09:46:35 AM »

Lately I've been getting a lot of freeze ups .....cursor won't move, buttons don't work, contro/alt/delete no good. Only thing to do is to shut the power down. Then the system starts up in safe mode. AVG virus scans show infection by l-worm/Mydoom.0 , pathway is c:/Restore , file is A023936.cpy , this often happens while on Greybeards, but I don't know if that means anything. I'm open to advice how to stop this freeze up and stop Mydoom once and for all. HELP.....now the kicker is I'm using windows ME on DSL. HELP,,,[also, I don't know too much about technocomputor stuff]

thanx.......TM7

Graybeard · « **Reply #1 on:** December 14, 2005, 10:50:12 AM »

You need someone a lot more computer savy than me to help you. But where you are has nothing to do with it. You are infected with a seriously bad bugger and need help making it go away. Some of those things there are instructions on the internet on how to get rid of them. Often Norton has a fix you can down load. A Google search often turns up the needed help.

But then some times you just can't do it. All you can do is just wipe and restart. I have no clue which is the case here. If you go to the kinda places to get such and don't have proper protection I'd bet you also have loads of spyware and/or adware on your computer.

You really need to get it fixed and properly protected whether you can figure how or whether you need to pay someone to do it.

quickdtoo · « **Reply #2 on:** December 14, 2005, 11:16:26 AM »

Since it's infected your restore files, you need to turn system restore off, then get rid of it, otherwise everytime you delete it, it will be restored at start up because of the way ME checks system files from the previous startup and not knowing the file is malware. You could also have some serious other malware running on your PC that's causing the problem, draining system resources. If you can get online to run a free online scan at Trend Housecalls, it will delete the problem and others that may be running. After your PC is cleaned, do a restart, then enable system restore.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/tsgeninfo.nsf/docid/2001012513122239?OpenDocument&src=sec_doc_nam

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

KN · « **Reply #3 on:** December 14, 2005, 02:20:32 PM »

The first thing you should do is get rid of "ME". Upgrade it to "XP" and a lot of problems will disappear. ME is the worst system Microsoft ever came out with. Thats why it only lasted a few months. I know, I got one of the first ones. KN

briarpatch · « **Reply #4 on:** December 14, 2005, 04:16:13 PM »

KN, hit the nail square on the head. ME is the worst.

quickdtoo · « **Reply #5 on:** December 14, 2005, 04:50:05 PM »

I think if an OS upgrade were in my future at this time, I'd wait for Vista next summer.

ShadowMover · « **Reply #6 on:** December 14, 2005, 07:46:11 PM »

Buy a Mac. No viruses, trojans, or worms yet. I'm sure they will someday, but they didn't build in all the errors and backdoors that Gates has, so it will be tougher. It's simple, elegant, and it works.

"Never ask what sort of computer a guy drives. If he's a Mac user, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him? - Tom Clancy "

quickdtoo · « **Reply #7 on:** December 15, 2005, 01:13:59 PM »

That's good to hear, it's always nice when a plan works the way it's supposed to!!!

To help keep your PC running healthy, I recommend you run daily scans with your Anti-virus software and at least weekly scans with anti-spyware, plus Scandisk and defragmentation every week or 2, depending on how much use the PC gets. Here are some freeware programs that work well..

http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10399602.html

http://www.download.com/3000-2144-10122137.html

Spywareblaster just runs in the background and helps prevent infections, it just needs to be updated regularly.

http://majorgeeks.com/download2859.html

quickdtoo · « **Reply #8 on:** December 16, 2005, 05:50:45 AM »

Use the windows update option in the startup menu to get all updates available. Use the selective startup to add one program at a time until the problem occurs to eliminate what's causing the issue. Trouble shooting issues like this can be a real pain, for sure. :?

victorcharlie · « **Reply #9 on:** December 16, 2005, 08:53:31 AM »

If I were you I'd run a full system backup, and copy the registry. Your system sounds like you have a hard drive that is failing.........probably with an uncorrectable read error.........you are probably having a lot of correctable read errors slowing the system down as your harddrive slowly begins to take chunks out of the disk........Or the bearing may be failing with a speed check error..........Or it could be the worm corrupting the registry........Do you know how to capture and read the system log?

Either way, if you want to keep your data you better get a backup.........

Do you have a good backup of your system before your problem started? If so, it maybe easier to blow every thing away and restore from the backup.......

If you arn't comfortable with backup and restores I would take the laptop to a good local mom and pop shop and see what it would cost to get them to help you. Unless of course it's under warranty, in which case I'd call for warranty repair..........

Calling for warranty repair.......this is a lot easier if you speak asian indian.............

Again, if you want your data you better start soon!

quickdtoo · « **Reply #10 on:** December 16, 2005, 12:55:12 PM »

It could be a lot of things with ME, it's probably the most buggy of all of the MS OSs. Before you go to the trouble of reloading everything, I would follow VC's advice on checking the hard drive to make sure it's not bad. You can run scandisk in DOS if you have a startup disk or can choose MS-DOS prompt from the programs menu. Otherwise, I would download the hard drive mfrs diagnostic program and run it, it will give you a code if it finds errors. They have a 90 second test and more extensive tests to run.

victorcharlie · « **Reply #11 on:** December 17, 2005, 08:34:43 AM »

The reason I'm guessing a hard drive failure is it's the only thing mechanical in your configuration. If your running ME, I assume the laptop is a few years old.......Hard drives don't last forever.......

victorcharlie · « **Reply #12 on:** January 03, 2006, 03:12:14 AM »

I think you can export your address book to a file......save it to disk, and then import it back in.

From outlook express help:

To export your address book contacts to other programs
You can export your address book contacts to other Windows Address Book files (WAB), as well as to Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book, or any text (CSV) file.

To export your address book files to another Windows Address Book:

In Address Book, click the File menu, point to Export, and then click Address Book (WAB).

Locate and select the Windows Address Book file you want to export to, and then click Open.

For all other address book formats:

In the Address Book, click the File menu, point to Export, and then click Other Address Book.

Click the address book or file type you want to export to, and then click Export.

To import:

To import an address book from another program
You can import address book contacts from other Windows Address Book files (WAB), as well as from Netscape Communicator, Microsoft Exchange Personal Address Book, or any text (CSV) file.

For Windows Address Book files:

In Address Book, click the File menu, point to Import, and then click Address Book (WAB).

Locate and select the address book you want to import, and then click Open.

For all other address book formats:

In the Address Book, click the File menu, point to Import, and then click Other Address Book.

Click the address book or file type you want to import, and then click Import.

If your address book is not listed, you can export it to either a text (CSV) file or an LDIF (LDAP Directory Interchange Format) file, and then import it using that file type.