[The Smooth Operator]

ok great news, managed to find an install/revocery cd-rom. from mesh computers, popped it in and it says install windows xp , install compponenets etc. ejected. i'm going to make a start saving my files. yeah read the link on that hacker defender, nasty work. i never open unsolicited attachments, but do dl a lot of games and music. will we be able to find out after where it came from or at least when.

dunno how long it will take me, probably next few hours. but definately go ahead and reformat, etc.

cheers,

Jim.

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Quick question: Using Nero to burn CD's. Have 1000's of tunes, mainly .mp3's

Choosing Audio-CD means I can only get about 10 songs on there. Choosing Data-CD means I can get 100. Whats the Audio-CD doing... is it changing the mp3 format to something that will let most CD players play the songs? What about In-car CD players that support mp3 nowadays? Does that mean I can create a Data-CD of mp3's and cram more on the disc and still play them in players that support that, or does it still need to be an Audio CD.

When you're ready, I'd like you to talk me through reformatting.

Jim.

[The Smooth Operator]

Quick question: Using Nero to burn CD's. Have 1000's of tunes, mainly .mp3's

Choosing Audio-CD means I can only get about 10 songs on there. Choosing Data-CD means I can get 100. Whats the Audio-CD doing... is it changing the mp3 format to something that will let most CD players play the songs? What about In-car CD players that support mp3 nowadays? Does that mean I can create a Data-CD of mp3's and cram more on the disc and still play them in players that support that, or does it still need to be an Audio CD.

When you're ready, I'd like you to talk me through reformatting.

Jim.

[The Smooth Operator]

where have you guys gone, michelle, ?

you said you wouldn't desert me! I haven't seen you for a couple of days...

maybe you can get back to me after the weekend.

have a good one...

Jim.

[Michelle]

Hey Jim
I'm here! Unfortunately, I won't be much help to you now, but here nonetheless!

Michelle

[admin]

I would backup your songs as MP3, you can always copy them back to your hard drive, or convert them to audio CD's later if you wanted. Hard drives have also come down in price drastically. You may want to consider upgrading the size of your extra drive enough to hold all the info from your boot drive. Remember, you only have to format your boot drive (the one that contains the C:\Windows folder).

Here's a good guide on performing a clean install of Windows XP:
http://www.blackvipe...tallxphome1.htm

Delete the Windows parition and create a new, as shown as an option in the instructions.

[The Smooth Operator]

read that page, but my computer won't even let me format. i've closed all programs that i'm aware of.

let me get this right hto, i click c: and format. and then i don't have an OS, so i reboot, and load my xp cd rom , yeah?

and whats the partition all about, why do i need it, why delete it, and make a new one? is it anything to do with d: drive. i mean is it a partition so that windows is on both the c: and d: drives? or is it a partition of hard-disc space? urgh. fwiw i don't even want anything on d:, except video and audio files.

so know why my manufacturer seems to have installed, windows, ie, etc, on my d: drive too, even tho i want it strictly for video. think i should format that too?

[admin]

You can't run the format command from the same drive that you're trying to format.

Put your XP CD in the drive, and see if it boots to Windows setup. If not, you'll need to edit your BIOS settings to enable it to boot from the CD. Usually, this just means moving the CD ROM drive up in the boot order.

[The Smooth Operator]

thanks admin, but not quite following what you mean.

i've put my win xp cd in the cd-rom, and it opens the menu, 1st option is to install win xp. i didn't go through that, because i haven't formatted my drive yet.

i restarted pc with the win xp cd in the cd-rom and windows just started as normal.

tried same putting it in dvd-rom. nothing unusual. pc booted off the drive i guess.

restarted again, and hit Delete, to enter BIOS. scares me these blue screens, but i had a sneak peek and exited without saving.

there was a list of 4 under start up, 1) harddrive, 2) floppy, 3) cdrom, (presume cd not the dvd) 4) network

thanks mate, not really getting anywhere at the moment, cause i don't understand your basic advice, sorry.

Jim.

[admin]

If you're getting the setup screen, you're half way there.

Continue with Windows Setup. Did you look at the Black Viper guide? Where are you getting stuck?

[The Smooth Operator]

yeah but thats me just popping the xp cd into my drive (like right now) and installing (or re0installing) windows... i thought you wanted me to format my c: drive.

[admin]

Before setup runs, you'll have the option to recreate the partitions, or format your drive.

[The Smooth Operator]

hmmm... why didnt ya say so ok, cool. so looking at the logs i've sent, are u 100% sure my d: isn't infected, even tho, it seems to have windows folders in it. i mean, i'd hate to format c: and then have the virus on d: jump back onto c:

and is there a link u might have about partitions.. as i have no idea why i need one... would like some background info.

thanks so much... jim

[The Smooth Operator]

i mean should i copy and paste hijack this to a d:/HJT folder too?, or am i thinking too much.

[admin]

so looking at the logs I've sent, are u 100% sure my d: isn't infected

No. Go Start -> Run, type CMD, press ENTER. Does the command prompt say C:, or D:? This is your active Windows partition. You can just go ahead and delete the other Windows folder - it's just taking up space.

A hard drive can either be a single drive letter (C:), or it can be partitioned into smaller virtual drives (C:, D:, E:, etc). Before you can format a drive, you have to tell it how many partitions to have. Also, some viruses and trojans are able to survive a reformat, but not deleting a partition. So, I recommend you delete any partitions using Windows setup, create a new partition, and format the drive. Then reinstall Windows. The blackviper guide explains each of those steps with screen shots. If it's not making sense for you, I can look for another guide, or try to explain it better.

[The Smooth Operator]

Ok, I'm now replying from another computer, as the one I'm trying to fix is totally messed up.

i typed cmd in start>run, and as you expected it is my c:, so...

I went into BIOS and under boot, chose to "Disable" both my c: and d: drives, so that my e: or f: cd-rom is the only device it boots from.

i then followed the instructions to delete the partition on the c: drive, and it crashed (a slightly different blue screen) with the warning about shutting windows down to avoid harming my computer, please check new hardware and drivers, etc, and other warning like IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and DRIVER_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL and ***USBPORT.SYS etc. and A wait operation, attach process, or yield was attempted from a DPC routine.

I'm also wondering why when I created the partition, it assigns it as F: (thing is, my CD or DVD drive is already labelled as E: and F: respectively. And my 80gb D: seems to sometimes be called C: drive now, in that set up screen. But sometimes I try, and it correctly assigns the partition as C:, and my D: drive is still D:. ???

Sometimes I've done exactly the same, and it has let me get as far as the progrss bar for formatting - but again crashed around 15% at the most. Same thing, a different blue screen with white text saying DRIVER_IRQL_NOT EQUAL.


Jim.