Desktops: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting...
- 8/3/07 12:20 PM
3-4
by santuccie - 8/4/07 12:07 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Actually, it wasn't my system. I was using BlackICE, a NIPS firewall, early last October when my grandma's computer started acting funny. Scanning revealed an IRC Flood Trojan horse; in short, a botnet program trying (and succeeding) to harvest millions of machines for its bot master. She was using McAfee SecurityCenter at the time, which included only a basic firewall.
Her machine was quickly and severely compromised. Her defense apparatus was completely shut down, and System Restore was disabled. Trend Micro's HouseCall could not be accessed from normal mode or safe mode. I tried disinfecting her machine with multiple scanners on my flashdrive in safe mode. When I rebooted, I found that I'd crippled Windows Logon.
I am a happy user of Acronis True Image, so I wasn't in nearly as bad a predicament as the average user would be. I also had an external hard drive, and even WinPE Ultimate to make backups a LOT easier. Had it not been for the convenience of a GUI, I would have taken a lot of time backing up her data files from DOS.
It was at least a week or two before I saw on the news what was happening, after restoring her system at least three times. When I realized it wasn't my grandma's fault, I replaced McAfee with BlackICE, AVG, and Windows Defender. By the time my friends and customers started calling me, I'd also found that NetVeda Safety.Net, a DPI firewall, could block the worms. Two of my troubled friends had ZoneAlarm Pro and Security Suite, which kind of surprised me.
Now, I'm using McAfee SecurityCenter on my machine, free from AOL. The firewall in their latest version now has NIDS, and they've added other nice features like HIDS and script blocking. It proves quite powerful on its own, but the evolution of threats over this past year has made me paranoid. Now, I lock Windows' core on all our machines, so nothing, not even adware, can launch. My grandma never installs anything on her computer, so I removed all security software from her machine, and enabled Windows Firewall. Now that her system is all locked down, all she needs are her firewall and a temp files cleaner.
my method:
by andy419 - 8/4/07 12:23 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If the computer does not boot up , this trick almost always works.
way 1: the 2-day trick dont ask me why or how this works, but it did with my old windows xp computer. Turn the computer off and 2 days later try turning it on again. (it worked with my old laptop)
way 2: when you boot it up, hold down f12 or f10 or esc or whatever it is ti get into setup. go to boot options and it should be on quick boot. change it to long boot and then save that and exit setup. Press ctrl+alt+del to reboot. If that dosent work, go back into setup and do drive check (the long one)
way 3: buy an external hard drive enclosure and put the broken hard drive in there. Get norton partition magic and plug the hard drive enclosure (with hard drive in it) into another computer. use it to either repair the broken boot sector or make a new partition in it and put it back in the laptop when it gives you the option to boot from the 2nd partition, select that. You will probably have to rebuild windows. Then, go to the first partion in my computer (whilst using the 2nd partition) to recover the files onto the second partition. Then you can delete the first partition.
How many times have you resorted to reformatting...
by Legionaire2 - 8/4/07 2:21 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
3 times this week after installing a new CPU and the computer still not giving me the performance I had with my last CPU which was 1GHz slower. Instance, burning DVD's with a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo CPU and Nero the whole task was completed in 45 minutes now the same task with a Intel Pentium D 2.80GHz from transcoding the DVD to burning on the first attempt would until I aborted the operation would have been 8hr 30min !!!. Still cannot figure what the problem is as the BIOS is correct and the CPU is for this motherboard so I'm now looking at flashing the BIOS and Chip Sets to see if I get better results.
Everything I've done has produced the same result so if that is'nt resolved by updating the board etc which is brand new then my other CPU go's back in.
I've upgraded many CPU's for family and friends and never had this problem or had to resort to reformatting.
Is the new CPU a Core Duo also?
by Pharaoh4evr - 8/4/07 6:54 AM In reply to: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Legionaire2You described your original CPU as Core 2 Duo but not the new one. Just wondering if it was. If it isn't, that is why you aren't getting the results you want. Also check the motherboard specs and make sure the newer CPU is supported. Sometimes in the past I have tried upgrading to a larger CPU even when the Motherboard supported it and didn't help performance much at all or caused the whole system to become unstable. You may have had the most stable combination already for your build. That is not much for help but thought I would let you know that it does happen alot.
nagging network issue
by Insight Driver - 8/4/07 3:21 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I wipe and reformat about once a year or if I choose to change what I am using my machine for something else. I had a home network with a printer connected to my machine shared by the other four wired machines and one wireless connection to a laptop. The issue was when the Vista laptop was hooked up to the network, wired, all the other machines could no longer see my machine. The Vista machine could see every machine but mine. I went through all the network troubleshooting I could and spent hours doing methodical changes, one at a time. Nothing fixed the issue.
I finally decided I wanted a clean machine again, so I wiped my drive and did a fresh install. When I booted into windows, every computer in the network could see and access each other. There was something hidden that even savy network troubleshooting couldn't find. I went so far as to cascade switches as I only had four port ones and had six machines to network. No matter what network topology I used, everybody could access everyone else's shared folders.
Sometimes it's the only way to fix a nagging problem like that. Funny, though, except for networking my machine was working fine.
How many times...
by Jiller - 8/4/07 3:23 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have only done it once,with my IBM Aptiva it was old win 98se it ran for years,no problem!Really,tho,I turned it in for an IBM 300PL,win2000pro...even with HD bad sectors..it never gave me any problem!Then I baught an IBM net vista..same thing...never have I had a problem!!My daughters have been thru 2 hp's and 2 Dells,and a couple of laptops...all had bsod..always crashed...We still have the 300pl..works great! The kids were dying for an "cool" HP I baught it for them...[with a warning..not to] they wouldent listen.....The HP sits there,no one uses it..everyone uses the Net Vista and the 300pl.Both have win2000 pro.I would take a used IBM over a New Dell or HP any day!!!I guess its safe to say...never had to repartition..ect...thanks
Installed a card reader
by mattd241 - 8/4/07 4:29 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Once. Was doing an upgrade to my Compaq, rather than spend money on buying a new computer that still wouldn't have all I wanted. Everything went fine with adding my additional hardware and improvements (RAM, slave drive, audio system, temp/fan controllers, etc.) until the install of the multi-card reader. I left it for last knowing that the install would re-designate some drive letters (except "C"). I thought all went well until I went to reboot. Suddenly I had a failure to boot. I went nuts for a day and finally handed it to my local tech, unable to figure it out myself. He reported that the install of the card reader "made the boot partition on the C drive become the B drive. Since the computer will only boot from C and the boot partition was now designated as a B drive, it doesn't exist on C and therefore won't boot". He had to reformat the hard drive, which was heartbreaking because of the years of pics and info lost (I finally get around to buying a slave drive and auto save program, but still lost the info!). I'm no techie, but am curious. He said this often happens when installing a card reader on HP's and Compaq's. Anyone else ever hear of this happening?
refornatting
by brucon41 - 8/4/07 4:36 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
over twenty years of home computing I have had 8 different computers and have to reformat them at least once. It is easier today than before. Hope there is no more in the future,haha
Restoring my computer
by JackieT41 - 8/4/07 5:06 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I had to restore my windows XP because i kept getting a message saying that my system was a victim of counterfeiting of software,it said my certificate was not genuine,but i looked on the back and i got a genuine certificate.i just had to validate it in the end,i have not had any more problems since
5 - 6, mostly thanks to Win98
by generic - 8/4/07 5:07 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
The bulk of my reformats were because I was running Win98SE coupled with me being a complete newbie, but I swear Win98 starts to decay on it's own the moment you finish installing. I had to reinstall it so many times I could remember it's product key off by heart.
Switching to Win2000 was a huge improvement, I only reformatted about once a year, although sometimes it was due to my aggressive tweaking. On my latest format/reinstall last month, I replaced it with WinXP, as it was starting to show signs of erratic behaviour, things were starting to abandon Win2k support, and I could get WinXP among several other things free courtesy of my MSDN account from my course at university.
My other format/reinstall was replacing Vista with XP (an upgrade in my eyes) on my new laptop, and I'll likely be replacing my old desktop WinXP with Ubuntu Linux.
Once, and that's when i gave up on the idea of Mac
by n-telligence.com - 8/4/07 5:16 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have never had it on my own computer (any of those i have had), but i have had it on a Mac i burrowed from a family member because my own laptop had been pushed of a table by a baby who was playing with it. The first thing that happened was that it started running extremely slow, and then it just kept comming with that darkening of the screen which is really the mac equevellent of BSOD.
I didn't reformat it, i just gave it back to my cousin and waited to get my trusty Acer Ferrari 3400 back.
Too many Times to Count
by majroth22 - 8/4/07 5:59 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I've tried to load countless versions of free OSs that magazines include on cds or dvds, mainly Unix and Linux derivatives, only to have things become stuck in computer limbo. The second worst offender would be some form of Windoze, where it degenerates into an inoperably slow system. If I'd spent the money on Symantic's Ghost or something similar to back up my system, Windows would almost be as trouble-free as my Apples, which I have a free program (CCCloner) that allows me to burn an exact copy of my start up HD to another drive and be able to boot it up in an entirely different machine like nothing ever changed-almost as good as time travel.
The other trick is to have at least two different operating systems on hand so you can do some psycho-surgery on the ailing OS from another OS. This can be done with Knoppix or other Live dvd/cd bootable OSs.
Many many times
by somanyroads - 8/4/07 6:32 AM In reply to: Too many Times to Count by majroth22I have been running a home network since the days of windows 95, so there have been many times when I have reformatted and started over.Over time it has become something I do less often. In the win95 days I got caught by a worm , that I just could not eradicate from my network. On a few occasions it was as a result of uninstalling a game and finding that the OS was buggered. By Win98 things got a bit better in those days it was often a case of starting over when I'd spent several hours on a problem and simply wanted to get things up and running again. I have always maintaied a comprehensive backup and separate drives for that so a rebuild would only take an hour or less. Windows 2000 and Xp are far better and although I have had one problem in recent years I could not solve my ability to fault find the OS has also improved. So its something I do less often now. Indeed I cannot recall doing this in XP at all.
Never
by fccndl - 8/4/07 6:53 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Many years of Macs
In the 95 and 98 days many, with XP just once!
by Pharaoh4evr - 8/4/07 7:14 AM In reply to: Poll: How many times have you resorted to reformatting... by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I am sure it is not a unique situation but when I ran an upgrade install of XP from Win 98 se my system which had been stable for over three years suddenly had many problems. I took into account that I had alot of old programs and hardware over the years installed too. My first question was why doesn't this have backwards compatability? Unless Microsoft planned on making everyone change to XP. They certainly wasted no time eliminating all support for 98. There may have been alot of pirating of the 98 OS but they didn't lose that much money on it. In fact if you spent some time learning the ins and outs of that OS in my opinion it was the most stable system Microsoft has had. As far as security issues, I have had to add more junk than ever before to protect my system even with XP. I don't trust Microsofts OS's for anything important. I save that info for my Linux machine. It may not be as click and go as XP but far more secure.
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