Virus ? from thread on free electricity

[bernardgreen]

I seem to have had my main PC trashed. It cannot complete the start up of Windows and reverts to restarting the POST.

I suspect it was something that came in from the video that was linked in the " free electricity " thread 24 August 2011 which seems now to have been deleted.

Has anyone else suffered the same fate and if so any advice on clearing it.

Annoying as it got past my so far impregnable security.

 

[dormermike]

And with not wanting to sound like a smart ass, this demonstrates that the weakest link in security is often the user...

Depends on OS, but if its Vista, Win7k you may be able to rollback to a snapshot? Forget what its called, but try getting the safe boot menu holding F8 during early part of boot.

If it doesn't get past self test (POST) then ntdetect.com or similar may be missing.. is there any other message?

Cheers.

 

[JohnW2]

I seem to have had my main PC trashed. It cannot complete the start up of Windows and reverts to restarting the POST.

As I'm sure I don't have to tell you, such symptoms are a common manifestation of a whole host of hardware problems (including corruped/dying HDDs). Do you have any 'start-up disk' you can try to boot from?

I suspect it was something that came in from the video that was linked in the " free electricity " thread 24 August 2011 which seems now to have been deleted.

I presume you mean 23rd (24th is today). Is there anything, other than chronology, which leads you to suspect this? If you're talking about the Tesla nonsense, I looked at that video without any problems being detected at the time, and no problems subsequently.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[davelx]

If you think you may have "caught a cold", then on another PC, download Avira rescue system:

http://www.avira.com/en/support-download-avira-antivir-rescue-system

and burn it to a CD. Boot your PC from the CD (it will run a version of Linux) and let it run. It is updated regularly and shoul dpick up all but hte newest nasties.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I presume you mean 23rd (24th is today).

The teslatw@ posted twice.

 

[JohnW2]

I presume you mean 23rd (24th is today).

The teslatw@ posted twice.

Ah - persistent little devil, then!

I doubt that he would have knowingly had viruses on his website, since he wants people's PC's to remain healthy so that they can use them to waste their money purchasing his rubbish!

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

How do you know that's his aim, and not to distribute a trojan to do keylogging, or set systems up to be used in DDoS attacks etc?

 

[echoes]

I looked at the vid as well, and there was a suspect script which ran on exiting the page.
But reverting to POST is usually down to a bad hardware driver, especially if you see a brief BSOD. Does it boot in safe mode, bernard?

 

[JohnW2]

How do you know that's his aim, and not to distribute a trojan to do keylogging, or set systems up to be used in DDoS attacks etc?

I obviously can't know for sure - but the exercises you suggest would be futile if the effect of whatever was being distributed was to prevent the computer booting - as with what I said before, it would be in the interests of the perpetrators for the target machines to remain functional and at least apparently healthy! I strongly suspect that the website/video is a red herring, and that Bernard simply has a 'regular' computer problem.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[dormermike]

At what point during POST does it fail, and what is the message?

 

[bernardgreen]

At what point during POST does it fail, and what is the message?

Halfway through loading up windows it re-starts the POST, POST completes and Windows starts to load again. The cycle repeats. No messages or if there are they are not on screen long enough to see them.

Took it to the local expert computer dealer who diagnosed and repaired a corrupted Master Boot Record but declined to offer an opinion on how this corruption had occured. A local geek ( who I would not trust my machine to ) has the opinion that videos with a malicious pay load are becoming more common.

 

[Alarm]

Which is why I wont click on these things..............unless its someone elses pooter

 

[Lectrician]

How do you know that's his aim, and not to distribute a trojan to do keylogging, or set systems up to be used in DDoS attacks etc?

I obviously can't know for sure - but the exercises you suggest would be futile if the effect of whatever was being distributed was to prevent the computer booting - as with what I said before, it would be in the interests of the perpetrators for the target machines to remain functional and at least apparently healthy! I strongly suspect that the website/video is a red herring, and that Bernard simply has a 'regular' computer problem.

Kind Regards, John.

Viruses are bits of softare that are poorly written and rushed, and out of maybe 20 PC's they get 'installed' on, only 5 may actually do what was intended, such as key logging, email snifaling etc. The rest of the PC's simply end up with issues which where not intended.

There are of course some virus which are simply written to cause havoc.

 

[bernardgreen]

Viruses are bits of softare that are poorly written

I have to dis-agree with that. Some of the people writing virus are extremely gifted and they create some amazingly efficient code for the viruses they produce.

It is a pity that they prefer to use their skill in a malicious way rather than in a worthwhile professional role. That said a few virus writers have been recognised for their talent and have been sucessfully employed by open minded organisations. Having "I created the XXXX virus" on your un-written CV can open doors if the XXXX was a well crafted piece of software.

 

[JohnW2]

Viruses are bits of softare that are poorly written and rushed, and out of maybe 20 PC's they get 'installed' on, only 5 may actually do what was intended, such as key logging, email snifaling etc. The rest of the PC's simply end up with issues which where not intended. There are of course some virus which are simply written to cause havoc.

That's often very true. However, it's also true that (alleged) viruses have become a widely used scapegoat for all computer ills. Bernard may, of course, be right about the cause of his computer's problems, but I nevertheless think it's probably more likely that no external influences were involved.

Kind Regards, John.