Stupid spyware!

[FlyingPenguin]

Sounds like you had a virus and not spyware. There are a couple of nasty viruses that if you just clean them and don't repair the registry properly, you only make it worse and you often have no choice but to format.

ALWAYS research the virus on McAfee's or Symantec's website before cleanign it - see if there's a special cleaning tool for it.

[blade]

ALWAYS research the virus on McAfee's or Symantec's website before cleanign it - see if there's a special cleaning tool for it.

The problem was, no name was ever shown. Couldn't get it to show any name.

In any case, 2 more formats. The first was ok and things seemed fine. Though power vcr acted weird, it'd freeze and sometimes turn my screen black. Did all the windows updates, and even 'tried to install service pak 2, because I liked some things it added. However, it got about halfway installing sp2, then gave a critical error I let it send to ms, several of them. Things were super slow. Something was using 100% of my cpu. Disabled folding and nothing else showed that much in task manager or other processes.

Rebooted, but would just hang, other times when it would boot, it go to windows, but only show the wallpaper. Tried repair install, etc..ended up having to format, again.

Ok, install xp 'again. :; As before, I install kerio first and then AVG. Did a full scan for viri and for trojans too with 2 anti trojan tools. Then did the windows updates with the 379 reboots. All seemed ok. So I had the urge (darn it) for sp2. Found it on ms's site, not in windows update. Did a fresh boot, downloaded it and then installed it. Well, again it got about halfway and stopped, gave me several crirical errors.

And again, everything was screwed up, not working right. It'd get to the wallpaper, that's it. Nothing else would show. No task bar, no icons, nothing but the wallpaper.

So, formatted one more time, and all "seems" ok now. No, I'll wait on the official release of sp2.

But still, something had to cause the initial troubles.


*Now when I try the windows update, it gives me a "windows update error". Been like that the past few hours. Can anyone else get in?

Funny too, I must have activated xp 4-5 times in the past days, it all went fine and never had to call in.


***Another thing. The files it 'truncated' which made them worthless 32kb files from 600-700mb files, all that space isn't cleared from the hard drive. Must be around 7-10gb gb that I should have back. I deleted them, but the space still isn't back. Any ideas?

[FlyingPenguin]

Did you just format the drive, or delete and create a new partition? I would have wiped the partition to be safe.

[blade]

Just formatted. First time I formatted it to nsfs from fat32.

If I deleted the C partition, would it effect the D partition fat 32 on the same drive, and would it be easy to get C going again booting from the cd? Never really done this with ntfs. And don't use a floppy anymore. Though I could hook one up.

If problems still pop up, I will have no choice but to do that. Something, got me good. But so far, all is well. *crosses toes*

[Executioner]

Jesus...I hope you had a good image file when you did a fresh install? I rather spend 5 minutes loading an image instead of reinstalling from scratch. What a chore that is.

Also, SpywareBlaster has a new version - 3.2. Like others, I also do not use IE.

[FlyingPenguin]

Blade, if you have Partition Magic it's easy to nuke a partition and create a new one in it's place.

I rather spend 5 minutes loading an image instead of reinstalling from scratch. What a chore that is.

Ditto. Norton Ghost is my friend.