B. S. O. D.

[SWC75]

Believe it or not, a Western Digital external hard drive, like the very popular Passport, has an unusual problem that can wreck your computer. After a couple of years the external drive crashes in such a way that it makes your computer virtually unusable. Western Digital is not acknowledging the problem but they have a new driver. This problem is becoming more prevalent and it is discussed on geek chatrooms. It happened to me. Fortunately, I have a very good virus program, G Data from Germany. I ran it for three days due to the fact that my computer was reduced to an abacus. The virus program finally identified the corrupt Western Digital external drive as a virus and quaranteed it, upon which my computer was immediately brought back from the dead. I trashed the Western Digital and bought a Seagatge external drive. Everything is copesthetic now. Out of curiosity I tried to load the new WD driver. My virus program works on the principle that once a virus is identified anything with similar elements cannot be reloaded. Therefore, I could never test the new driver, not that I would trust it over the long run.

Not saying that this is what happened to you. I never got a blue screen but my computer reacted by working so slowly that it was unusable. It is possible that your blue screen was due to a buggy WD Passport, if you happened to have one. Since there are only two brands and you had an external drive there is a 50:50 chance that you had a Western Digital external drive for your backup.

I didn't have an external hard drive.

 

[SWC75]

Trend's ok, my buddy works for them, but to be honest, another memory hog. And for the works to word files, I'm pretty sure I've been down that road before and have straightened out similar ones for my wife. Might have to walk you through it, or if you want, you can email me a sample file, see if it works, etc. But this is a matter of saving to the right format, should be easy with a little elbow grease.
Send over a private message and I'll give you my email address, just give me a bit, and might have to work on it tomorrow.

I'll recontact the Geek Squad guy first to see what he says. I had a disc from my second computer, (WORD) and one from my third, (WORKS) and he established files on WORD for each- and both had the files from the second computer when I pulled them up. I tried to click and drag files from the newer disc but the only thing that transferred was WORD. I also have everything backed up by Carbonite. Maybe I can get something from them. If I can't get a resolution form those sources, I'll recontact you.

 

[SWC75]

As fast as you can.. I like to repair PC's myself and tee gave good advice. Sounds like SWC had a bad hard drive or possibly power supply (I think most of the time they are the culprits but of course it could have been a bad driver too) but the first thing I do is try another HD & PS they are pretty easy.

They said there was nothing wrong with the hard drive. But they also said they would have ready on Sunday.

 

[tee1222]

Do I need to run a scan on the avast as well?

You're probably good to go if you did the full scan already, but I think avast also has a quick scan or similar named.
Not necessary if Malware didn't find anything else after full scan.

 

[tee1222]

I'll recontact the Geek Squad guy first to see what he says. I had a disc from my second computer, (WORD) and one from my third, (WORKS) and he established files on WORD for each- and both had the files from the second computer when I pulled them up. I tried to click and drag files from the newer disc but the only thing that transferred was WORD. I also have everything backed up by Carbonite. Maybe I can get something from them. If I can't get a resolution form those sources, I'll recontact you.

You got it, good luck either way!

 

[CorduroyG]

whats the best for spyware? arent you supposed to have something always running in the background? does avast protect from spyware?

 

[690West]

Welcome back. Please, always do yourself a favor and get the full version of Office and never the one without MS Word. Software engineer here, and sorry about your data problems. But again:

• Office with Word
• Get a large external hard drive, at least 1 Terrabyte (backup important data at least once per month if possible)
• Protect yourself with two free products for home use, Malware Bytes and Avast antivirus. Not only are they free, but they are not "memory hogs" meaning your pc is free to perform faster by concentrating on other processes.

Then, uninstall Norton or whatever junk came with your pc to begin with. These and other "freebies" that came with the pc sometimes slow you down, and even are considered themselves "spyware".

You will then live the rest of your life virus free, even though this sounds like hardware failure.

By the way, I'm that next-door neighbor geek

Then...get a mac

 

[orange79]

Downloiaded malware bytes and doing a scan and it says it detected 152 objects so far. This is with McAfee running.

Malware Bytes is great! Simply the best

 

[realorange]

Welcome back. Please, always do yourself a favor and get the full version of Office and never the one without MS Word. Software engineer here, and sorry about your data problems. But again:

• Office with Word
• Get a large external hard drive, at least 1 Terrabyte (backup important data at least once per month if possible)
• Protect yourself with two free products for home use, Malware Bytes and Avast antivirus. Not only are they free, but they are not "memory hogs" meaning your pc is free to perform faster by concentrating on other processes.

Then, uninstall Norton or whatever junk came with your pc to begin with. These and other "freebies" that came with the pc sometimes slow you down, and even are considered themselves "spyware".


You will then live the rest of your life virus free, even though this sounds like hardware failure.

By the way, I'm that next-door neighbor geek

I would also give props to my favorite anti-virus, Avira. You didn't even need to worry about the recent Java problem if you had it installed.

 

[tee1222]

whats the best for spyware? arent you supposed to have something always running in the background? does avast protect from spyware?

Malware bytes is good for spyware, always catches things that antivirus should have found, and hardly any "false positives".
Free and never bogs your system down.

 

[arbitragegls]

Here's what happened, for those that are interested.

Two weeks ago I started getting what is known as the dreaded "Blue Screen of Death":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Screen_of_Death

All I could do with it was to turn the machine off with the power button and then turn it back on. I got it three times on Tuesday night. The next day I ran a full system scan which took all day but found no virus of any kind: just a few cookies. On Thursday I called the Geek Squad, (the tech service offered by Best Buy) and they established remote access. Their agent also did a scan and was engaged in a clean-up of the computer, (it's a full PC, not a lap-top), when the blue screen popped up again. While calling them back I turned the machine off and on again. I was still on hold when the blue screen re-appeared. the Geek told me he had found nothing wrong with the software so there must be something with the hardware and I should take into the local Best Buy where they could work on the hardware.

I brought it in on Friday and pretty, smiling clerk cheerfully told me it would be ready on Sunday. I got home and the work order, (which identified the problem as "B.S.O.D.", which either meant "Blue Screen of Death" or that the machine had OD'd on BS), said the expected completion date was 1/14/13, which was Monday. But I didn't hear from them until Tuesday, when they said they needed a disc that came with the machine so they could restore it to an earlier version of itself. They'd isolated it to a corrupted driver that helps Windows boot up but had not been able to install a new one. I brought it down and they said it would be ready sometime on Wednesday. I waited all day Wednesday and didn't hear anything so I called in that evening. They said it would be done by Noon Thursday. I didn't hear anything by then so I called them again and was told it was taking a long time to "download the updates" and I could pick it up on Friday. On Friday I drove down and was told they'd been unable to restore it, (every time they thought it was done they got a screen asking if they wanted to restore it all over again). They asked if I wanted it back "as is". I asked them to hook it up to a monitor to show me what the definition of 'is' was. They couldn't even boot it up. I told them they could have it for recycling and walked over to the sale department to buy a new machine.

People keep urging me to "get a Mac". The Macs they had on display cost 3-4 times as much as the CPUs and lacked the capability to insert the CD-RW I had saved all my writings on. I was told I'd need to buy something extra for that. I hadn't been able to transfer anything from my first computer to my second back in 2003 because of a compatibility problem. I didn't want to go through that again so I opted for another PC. The clerk said Dells had a bad reputation these days, (my first Dell last 6 1/2 years and still worked- it just didn't have enough RAM-, this one lass than 3), so I bought a Hewlett-Packard. They have a service where a Geek will come out to your house and hook everything up for you, which I requested since I have the technical skill of a Neanderthal. Because of the games and Saturday and Monday, I couldn't get an appointment until today and I'm finally back on line.

Unfortunately, I've run into a glitch in transferring my files to the new computer. My second computer had WORD and when the disc I made for that one was inserted into my third computer, which had WORKS, It made a WORKS copy of it for storage on the new machine. But this machine has WORD and WORD doesn't seem to like anything done on WORKS. I've found I can open a document using WORD but not keep it. But I can highlight, copy and then paste onto a WORD page and it will save that if I ask it to. So I've got a lot of work to do the next few days.

The vacation from the internet hasn't been all bad. I've gotten around to doing several of the chores I never got to because I was ODing on the BS here. I've got the cleanest closets in North Syracuse. Now I can get back to being useless.

All good..but ONE significant question...did you destroy your hard drive...or going to destroy it. The hard drive on your former computer has all your data even if you believe you deleted the data...be careful my friend. You want that hard drive in pieces--even if you take a bottle of Jack and keep smashing the hard drive....we remain thirsty for your knowledge and historical perspective!

 

[tee1222]

All good..but ONE significant question...did you destroy your hard drive...or going to destroy it. The hard drive on your former computer has all your data even if you believe you deleted the data...be careful my friend. You want that hard drive in pieces--even if you take a bottle of Jack and keep smashing the hard drive....we remain thirsty for your knowledge and historical perspective!

arbitragegls is correct, and I should have mentioned that. Hold onto it, even if the Geek squad says it's fried. It might have sensitive data you saved, and no one should scrap it but you.

Sort of like the paper shredding idea.

 

[Marsh01]

Malware bytes is good for spyware, always catches things that antivirus should have found, and hardly any "false positives".
Free and never bogs your system down.

So just keep the free part of it and not pay to upgrade on the Malware bytes?

 

[HakAttack]

Take this from someone who worked for Best Buy for two summers while in college...Geek Squad is crap.

They'll mess up your computer and you'll get it back much slower than when you took it in. They charge you for things you don't need and they're generally awful.

I had a bunch of friends who were Geek Squad agents and the things they'd do for fun with people's computers were unethical and borderline illegal, to say the least.

 

[tee1222]

So just keep the free part of it and not pay to upgrade on the Malware bytes?

Yes, only the free part. Never upgrade neither Avast nor Malware.

 

[Marsh01]

Yes, only the free part. Never upgrade either Avast nor Malware.

I woke up this morning and the quick scan produced 350 items some of which were Trojan. I just quarantined and deleted them all. Now for the past 5 hours it has been running the full system scan. When I left the house this morning it showed 3 items. Will check it when I go home (assuming it is done scanning when I get home).

 

[PeteCalvin]

Downloiaded malware bytes and doing a scan and it says it detected 152 objects so far. This is with McAfee running.

F McAfee. It sucks.

 

[tee1222]

I woke up this morning and the quick scan produced 350 items some of which were Trojan. I just quarantined and deleted them all. Now for the past 5 hours it has been running the full system scan. When I left the house this morning it showed 3 items. Will check it when I go home (assuming it is done scanning when I get home).

Yeah, you had and probably still have some nasty stuff on there. But very glad Malware Bytes is cleaning it up. Let the scan keep going (You can work during it, but it is memory intensive, the full scan. While the scanning is going, if you need to browse a webpage, etc, you can "Pause" it and unpause after your work is done).

Since it will almost definitely ask you to restart after full scan, I would check it again with a Quick scan in a week or so again, just to make sure these Trojan Horses aren't self-installing again (the really sneak ones can do that by storing a time value on your registry in which to install again at a later date or even other mechanisms).

 

[Marsh01]

Yeah, you had and probably still have some nasty stuff on there. But very glad Malware Bytes is cleaning it up. Let the scan keep going (You can work during it, but it is memory intensive, the full scan. While the scanning is going, if you need to browse a webpage, etc, you can "Pause" it and unpause after your work is done).

Since it will almost definitely ask you to restart after full scan, I would check it again with a Quick scan in a week or so again, just to make sure these Trojan Horses aren't self-installing again (the really sneak ones can do that by storing a time value on your registry in which to install again at a later date or even other mechanisms).

Full scan came back with only 3 things and no Trojan. Had the wife reboot and it should be good to go. Will do another quick scan next week.

Thanks again!

 

[tee1222]

Full scan came back with only 3 things and no Trojan. Had the wife reboot and it should be good to go. Will do another quick scan next week.

Thanks again!

You got it Marsh.
Btw, that last scan sounded like it resulted in cookies or similar, relatively harmless so I think you're in the clear.

 

[SWC75]

welcome back you were missed

there was a thread about it and everything

http://syracusefan.com/threads/where-oh-where-is-swc75.42635/

even a partial stand-in for number geeks

http://syracusefan.com/threads/swc-style-recap-cincinnati-at-syracuse.42765/

Look forward to that Coaches show recap thursday night...

Thanks to Blacksquirrels for filling in for me. I'm amazed we beat Louisville considering they scored 107.9 points per possession. They were throwing it in from downtown!

 

[Marsh01]

Thanks to Blacksquirrels for filling in for me. I'm amazed we beat Louisville considering they scored 107.9 points per possession. They were throwing it in from downtown!

Thats a lot of points per possession!

 

[stuckinbig11]

I had Malware Bytes loaded long ago, then one of my grad students put Avast on my desktop last year when I was having some problems and the neighbor was on vacation. I have not had a problem since. Good advice.

 

[suttree]

You got it Marsh.
Btw, that last scan sounded like it resulted in cookies or similar, relatively harmless so I think you're in the clear.

Well, this is what you get for being generous and demonstrating your expertise: more questions. And, I suppose, a better-than-2:1 ratio in posts to likes. Thorny crown, that popularity thing.

I am a very late adopter but bought my first Mac--a top-shelf MacBook Air--a little over a year ago. I love this computer and, while I am happy I scooped up the free Sophos AV software and always have it "on," but would very much like to get your thoughts on a package that does a good job (1) not slowing down the computer, (2) reliably detects and shields against threats, and (3) also locates and destroys malware. I am willing to pay for the package (and am looking at ESET's Mac software) if it makes a difference and keeps this machine safe.

If you have a moment, I'd very much appreciate a recommendation. Thanks very much in advance!

 

[tee1222]

Well, this is what you get for being generous and demonstrating your expertise: more questions. And, I suppose, a better-than-2:1 ratio in posts to likes. Thorny crown, that popularity thing.

I am a very late adopter but bought my first Mac--a top-shelf MacBook Air--a little over a year ago. I love this computer and, while I am happy I scooped up the free Sophos AV software and always have it "on," but would very much like to get your thoughts on a package that does a good job (1) not slowing down the computer, (2) reliably detects and shields against threats, and (3) also locates and destroys malware. I am willing to pay for the package (and am looking at ESET's Mac software) if it makes a difference and keeps this machine safe.

If you have a moment, I'd very much appreciate a recommendation. Thanks very much in advance!

Mac specific? Sorry, although I do have an iphone, wifey used to have a Mac, I am way out of the loop on their software. Sorry man.
But either way, you've got much less security problems just by having a Mac to being with.
Also, although I like them, since I am a windows programmer/engineer, my hand is sort of forced into buying Microsoft products.

Either way, try to see from their website if avast or Malware bytes has a Mac compatible software version.