Does this sound like a virus infection?

[pizzaboy]

I'm stumped and hope someone can help me figure out what's going on ...

I am running Windows XP SP2 on a Desktop machine... I downloaded some
video files from bit-torrent. They came in their own subdirectory as
video files often do... When I tried to open the directory by
double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, WE crashed...

So I reloaded WE and tried it again (not being easily convinced) and it
crashed again.

After a reboot I decided to check MSCONFIG to see if anything had
changed....

Windows gave me an error saying that MSConfig was not a valid windows
command...

Uh-oh ...

Googled and found out that this type of thing is often caused by a
virus/trojan horse...

Meanwhile my hard drive is thrashing...

Got nervous and rebooted into safe-mode...

Safe-mode never got fully booted and hard drive was thrashing again...

I'm thinking that whatever virus is there is eating my files...

So I turned of the computer (forced power off)...

Pull hard drives, hook them up to my laptop via a USB-to-IDE interface
dongle and run PC-Cillin and Norton Antivirus on both drives. Neither
program could find any virus.

So I hooked up the drive that has the directory on it that caused
Windows Explorer to crash and navigated to the directory above that one
... .instead of double clicking on it, I right-click on it ..

Windows Explorer crashes...

Ugh...

So I'm here scratching my head... what do I have on that drive that
keeps crashing Windows Explorer but doesn't show up as a virus when
scanning the disk...

Any ideas? HELP !!

Thanks...

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "pizzaboy" <[email protected]>

| I'm stumped and hope someone can help me figure out what's going on ...
|
| I am running Windows XP SP2 on a Desktop machine... I downloaded some
| video files from bit-torrent. They came in their own subdirectory as
| video files often do... When I tried to open the directory by
| double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, WE crashed...
|
| So I reloaded WE and tried it again (not being easily convinced) and it
| crashed again.
|
| After a reboot I decided to check MSCONFIG to see if anything had
| changed....
|
| Windows gave me an error saying that MSConfig was not a valid windows
| command...
|
| Uh-oh ...
|
| Googled and found out that this type of thing is often caused by a
| virus/trojan horse...
|
| Meanwhile my hard drive is thrashing...
|
| Got nervous and rebooted into safe-mode...
|
| Safe-mode never got fully booted and hard drive was thrashing again...
|
| I'm thinking that whatever virus is there is eating my files...
|
| So I turned of the computer (forced power off)...
|
| Pull hard drives, hook them up to my laptop via a USB-to-IDE interface
| dongle and run PC-Cillin and Norton Antivirus on both drives. Neither
| program could find any virus.
|
| So I hooked up the drive that has the directory on it that caused
| Windows Explorer to crash and navigated to the directory above that one
| .. .instead of double clicking on it, I right-click on it ..
|
| Windows Explorer crashes...
|
| Ugh...
|
| So I'm here scratching my head... what do I have on that drive that
| keeps crashing Windows Explorer but doesn't show up as a virus when
| scanning the disk...
|
| Any ideas? HELP !!
|
| Thanks...


Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode.
This way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor's web site.
The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Kaspersky, Exit this menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file. http://www.ik-cs.com/multi-av.htm

Additional Instructions:
http://pcdid.com/Multi_AV.htm


* * * Please report back your results * * *

 

[someone]

'm stumped and hope someone can help me figure out what's going on ...

I am running Windows XP SP2 on a Desktop machine... I downloaded some
video files from bit-torrent. They came in their own subdirectory as
video files often do... When I tried to open the directory by
double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer, WE crashed...

If you're using bit-torrent you are probably loaded with spyware.
Get AdAware, Spybot or both.

 

[Dustbin]

If you're using bit-torrent you are probably loaded with spyware.
Get AdAware, Spybot or both.

Why not something better than those?