Re: Sudden freezes, and bits missing

Another twist, I'm afraid.

I suspect my firewall may be the root cause of the problem, as I get a
windows no disk in drive warning when I try to do some things with it. While
trying to sort this problem out with McAfey help chatline, they asked me to
search for a particular file. I don't use search much, but on accessing it
from 'Start', it ran for a while then crashed explorer. It does that every
time. It appears to work Ok when I access search from a 'My Computer' icon
right click, however. So it points to soemthing odd with the 'Start' button,
the same as the control panel problem, which has now re-surfaced.

I already use ethernet.

I will try what you suggest.

Unfortunately, the repair option is not available to me. I have no disk for
windows - it is all pre-loaded in an 'invisible' disk partition, and the
bloody disk I paid extra for to re-load the software doesn't work!!

I refuse to send the machine back to Time with the expense that would incur.

May end up trotting down to PC World and getting them to check it out!

Cheers!

"Galen" wrote:

> In news:7442BBBC-8BDC-488A-A4E5-8CAA3C803B0A@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,
> Tim <Tim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> had this to say:
>
> My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
>
> > I can't run sfc. All I get is a dos window for a fraction of a
> > second, then nothing.
> >
> > One other clue. I tried an experiment and unplugged the LAN
> > connection. The locking up problem appeared to go away. Any thoughts?
>
> Curiouser and curiouser... (I'm glad that you've not lost this thread in the
> web interface by the way.)
>
> Okay, let's start with the basics. Do you have a firewall installed and
> properly configured? Here's a decent site that you can go to and check to
> see how well it's configured:
>
> Security Scan - Sygate Online Services (sos):
> http://scan.sygatetech.com/
>
> You mentioned that you unplugged the LAN and the freezing stopped. How is
> the LAN connected to your computer? Is it USB? Often times people will have
> problems with USB to broadband connections which is why I ask. The simple
> solution at that point would be to heading down to your local department
> store and grabbing a simple 10/100 Ethernet Card and tossing it into your
> computer though you may wish to grab a straight cable while you're there if
> you don't already own one.
>
> Not being able to run system file check implies, to me, that there's been a
> serious compromize to your system and that there's still a possibility of
> you being infected with malware or even the removal process has rendered
> parts of your system unusable. Seeing as you're probably on a broadband
> connection (most dial-up users don't actually use a LAN to connect to the
> internet though I suppose some still do. Err... Wait... I do! But I'm pretty
> much unique in that and couldn't get broadband here if I wanted to yet with
> the exception of satellite connections with fair usage policies I'm not
> willing to subject myself to.) This leads me to a new question, can you use
> the command (it's just like this) Start > Run > "sfc /scannow" without the
> quotes in safe mode without networking? If you can then that tells us that
> there's a file loaded in your system that's still preventing you from using
> your system effectively. That would then mean that a trip to HijackThis
> forums would be your next best bet. (Those forums don't go here, instead
> look here for more information:
> http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30 and take a gander as there's too
> much to cover in here.)
>
> Let's see what happens with that next. Sometimes after cleaning up a PC that
> has been infected with malware and there's still portions of the system that
> won't run (like your system file checker at this point) you need to do a
> repair installation which only means that you'll lose your updates but
> you'll still have your files and your applications installed. In this case
> I'd recommend using HijackThis to create a log and posting it (be sure to
> follow the rules for posting the logs) at the above forum. It's free and a
> nice site owned by one of the MVPs and visited by many of the other MVPs.
>
> Galen
> --
>
> "And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
> with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
> very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
> made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."
>
> Sherlock Holmes
>
>
>
.