Hard drive not recognised caused by bing.com virus FIXED

[Refugee]

I had a hard drive disappear from bios and no boot.
I got hold of a PClinuxOS2009 CD image and it works as an operating system from the read only CD Download and burn for free. Use a non rewritable disk!!!
I booted from it and set to and had a go at making the "dead" drive dual boot.
It came up with many errors and kept on telling me the drive was not there. The good bit was that it was lighting the drive light!!!
After trying all the dual boot loaders on the disk i re-booted.
It began to load windows again so i quickly pulled the internet and it was alive again. Do Not Connect The Internet Again!!!! NO MATTER WHAT!!!
It had crashed when i was starting Avant browser and i wanted to have a look at what went wrong. Avant browser went strait to a website called bing.com displaying the web down message on the main screen and would not go th the home page even if i clicked home and was it still set to google when i checked the home page setting!
Remove the browser and use search with it set to find text in files and remove ALL of them if you intend to "save" the installation.
I am now going to have to copy all my data onto a second computer with Linux fully installed on it and totally re-partition the drive with the internet still disconnected from the ill computer and both during transfer.
It looks like Linux is going to save time in the long run because it requires far less security software to be loaded however it is a little slow getting used to installing software on it.

Yet another windows waste of time!!!

[Refugee]

I would like also to add that it also may change the bios settings too just in case i forgot while i was sharing the rest of it...
I didn't take the covers off but it is most likely a SATA drive.

[Bob_180_Bob]

I had a hard drive disappear from bios and no boot. I got hold of a PClinuxOS2009 CD image and it works as an operating system from the read only CD Download and burn for free. Use a non rewritable disk!!! I booted from it and set to and had a go at making the "dead" drive dual boot. It came up with many errors and kept on telling me the drive was not there. The good bit was that it was lighting the drive light!!! After trying all the dual boot loaders on the disk i re-booted. It began to load windows again so i quickly pulled the internet and it was alive again. Do Not Connect The Internet Again!!!! NO MATTER WHAT!!! It had crashed when i was starting Avant browser and i wanted to have a look at what went wrong. Avant browser went strait to a website called bing.com displaying the web down message on the main screen and would not go th the home page even if i clicked home and was it still set to google when i checked the home page setting! Remove the browser and use search with it set to find text in files and remove ALL of them if you intend to "save" the installation. I am now going to have to copy all my data onto a second computer with Linux fully installed on it and totally re-partition the drive with the internet still disconnected from the ill computer and both during transfer. It looks like Linux is going to save time in the long run because it requires far less security software to be loaded however it is a little slow getting used to installing software on it.

Yet another windows waste of time!!!

Hi,
I am trying to understand what you are trying to say. Please explain the following:-
1. "I got hold of a PClinuxOS2009 CD image and it works as an operating system from the read only CD Download and burn for free."
Did you use a program to take an image of a hard drive partition from one computer to another?
2. "I booted from it and set to and had a go at making the "dead" drive dual boot."
Did you have a bad drive and you tried to load the image to it? What program did you use for duel booting?
3. "It came up with many errors and kept on telling me the drive was not there."
If it could not find the drive, how did it detect errors?
4. "The good bit was that it was lighting the drive light!!!"
What??
5. "After trying all the dual boot loaders on the disk i re-booted.
It began to load windows again so i quickly pulled the internet and it was alive again. Do Not Connect The Internet Again!!!! NO MATTER WHAT!!!"
What???
6. "It had crashed when i was starting Avant browser and i wanted to have a look at what went wrong. Avant browser went strait to a website called bing.com displaying the web down message on the main screen and would not go th the home page even if i clicked home and was it still set to google when i checked the home page setting!"
No more internet...you went on the internet..?????????????????
7. "Remove the browser and use search with it set to find text in files and remove ALL of them if you intend to "save" the installation."
What??
8. "I am now going to have to copy all my data onto a second computer with Linux fully installed on it and totally re-partition the drive with the internet still disconnected from the ill computer and both during transfer."
Copy what data from where?
9. "It looks like Linux is going to save time in the long run because it requires far less security software to be loaded however it is a little slow getting used to installing software on it.

Yet another windows waste of time!!!"
What Windows? You loaded PClinuxOS2009 not any version of Windows?

[Refugee]

Hi there Bob.
The virus had made the drive so that it could not be detected by the bios.
What i had to do was insert the linux disk and allow it to boot.
I went into the options and selected the dual boot loaders one by one and each time the HDD indicator flashed more and more as what i was doing was to "bomb" the virus with the dual boot loaders. This action did kill enough of the virus for me to get the windows computer to boot again.
I have not cut the internet off because the machine i am using now was going to be my main system once i am done with getting used to linux. I have just had to get on with it a bit quicker after the virus attack.
I am now going to copy all my letterheads, photoes and address lists to the replacement computer so that i can fix the ill computer with fdisk and format to make sure the virus is gone for good as it will almost certainly come back again strait away if i put it back on the internet again. Id did force the browser strait back to the dodgy site so having the internet disconnected while working on it is vital.
It is then going to have a clean install of linux when i am done.

[Bob_180_Bob]

Hi again,
The best anti-virus program will not necessarily get all viruses. Go to this site:-
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread27570.html

If you want to run a boot virus scan, go to the site in my signature (UBCD) download, make a Cd , boot your system an scan for all sorts of problems including viruses. Then you can use the program to transfer your data to wherever you want.

What is "to "bomb" the virus with the dual boot loaders." Please explain how dual boot loaders can assist with the removal of viruses.

A bit more reading:-

Anti-virus programs (Free) –
Never have two anti-virus programs running on your machine, it will cause problems.

I use and highly recommend:-
Microsoft Security Essentials, http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essent…

Others are:-

AVG AntiVirus, http://free.avg.com/ww-en/download-avg-anti-virus-free
Avast! 4 Home Edition, http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

Other good programs to run as well, I recommend you download and run both:-

Malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/
Spywareblaster http://www.filehippo.com/download_spywareblaster/

Firewall

A firewall is critical these days, particularly if you have a high-speed connection (such as DSL, cable, etc.). A software firewall is a minimum requirement, a hardware firewall is much better, and a combination of both a software and hardware firewalls is best. Having more than one software firewall, however, will not offer any additional protection, and will usually create problems.

Hardware-type firewalls are available from companies such as SMC, Linksys, Netgear, and others.

If you are using Windows 7 keep your firewall, if not, I recommend you download and run one (only one) of these free programs:-

Comodo http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/
Zonealarm http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/home.htm?lid=en-

Updates

Get the Critical Updates for Windows using Windows Update (it should be in your Start menu). If your OS is Windows XP, and you do not currently have SP3, get it. If you do not have your PC set to check for updates automatically, check manually at least weekly.

The last program I would recommend is a register cleaner:-

Ccleaner, http://www.ccleaner.com/

Malicious programs will load themselves automatically into your Temporary Internet Files folder (in IE). You can set IE up to automatically empty this folder every time you close it by going to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced; scroll down to the Security section, locate Empty Temporary Internet Files folder when browser is closed, and put a checkmark in the box. Click Apply, and then OK.

[Refugee]

Bombing the virus meant that i made a number of attempts to load a software device that writes to the boot sector and since the drive was not working they put safe defaults in on exit after detecting an error.
This was what i correctly figueed would make the drive detect again.
Linux is protected in a different way and the main installation is far less likely to fail due to virus attack ans as a result of not having to run such a complicated scanner runs faster on the web.

[caperjack]

sounds like you are promoting linux

[Refugee]

It is just that i was running with a newly formatted system with linux on it and getting used to it and had not yet done the PC to PC backup that was due in a couple of days. Without this i was stuck with a month old backup that was left over following another virus attack on a windows 2000 system that has been formatted to linux as a replacement. The virus that stopped the hard drive from being detected was on a windows XP system that was only used for software that would not run on windows2000 and when used as a replacement during works to fix the original it has proved to be unreliable. I have not been able to find anything else as reliable as windows2000 that will run modern software.