big trouble in PC town! HELP!!

[Kevin K Irish]

OK, i am running on WindowsXP (uprgaded from Win98 2-E),
an AMD Duron, 1.19 GHZ, 304 RAM, file sys FAT32 on a
Compaq Presario 7470...the problem started when i
performed a defrag without scan disc or disc check
first. this removed all restore points. i have run
Norton and FixIt utilities to find virus or sys
problem...al reports were normal(no problems) the same in
device manager. when i installed WinXP it added "F" drive
and all was fine. now "F" drive is intermittant and i
cannot change it back. MY Computer>Manage>change drive
letter (this doesn't fix)
also, here is a list of things that are ka-put!
1)CAD (Computer Aided Design)software seems fine, except
the window used for the work are blank...the curser will
highlight as if able to "pick" but cannot see what is
going on (cannot reinstall due to CD ROM drive
intermittant change.)
2) CD ROM drive letter changes intermittantly, and
again ,i cannot change it to "f" which works fine.
device manager indicates all are working and enabled.when
i attampt to "go back" when the drive was working, all
problems are still there.
3) upon trying to re-install WindowsXP, message that:
cannot find previous O/S, but i can still find Win98
folders and backups. i also get the messege: windows
root>system>hal.dll file not found. re-install hal.dll
file. can't do that because the CD ROM drive is
intermittant. and sometimes i can insert a CD but the
drive is not accessable even though the CD ROM drawer
opens and closes intermittantly.
4) i had the WORM/BLASTER was able to fix through
Symantic web site.
5) i have noticed in my hotamil for e-mail, that i am
recieving messeges that i have sent e-mails that are
infected, however, i have NOT e-mailed to the addresses
in the error messege.
6) why do i see NT files in my system when i am not (and
do not want to )run NT? is it safe to delete any NT files
since i am using a FAT32 system?
i have downloaded a majority of the service packs and
such from Microsoft's site, are these stopping my
attempts?
my PC is set to administrator and not networked.
ANY help will be greatly appreciated. PLEASE respond to:
(e-mail address removed) as it is VERY hard to find a
response in this forum.
thank you in advance and i sincerely appreciate any help
i can get!

 

[Jim Macklin]

Item 5... These viruses get on a computer and use the
addressbook to harvest email addresses. They then send
infected email to all on the address lists. They also use
one or more of those addresses to spoof the "sender." When
an address is no longer deliverable (dead mailbox) YOU get a
notice because it was your email address that was used by
the infected computer.

Item 6 NT is part of W98se, XP and is not the same things
as NTFS which is a file system. NT is an operating system.
Don't delete systems files at random unless you like to
spend time reinstalling.

Your hard drive may be developing problems.


message | OK, i am running on WindowsXP (uprgaded from Win98 2-E),
| an AMD Duron, 1.19 GHZ, 304 RAM, file sys FAT32 on a
| Compaq Presario 7470...the problem started when i
| performed a defrag without scan disc or disc check
| first. this removed all restore points. i have run
| Norton and FixIt utilities to find virus or sys
| problem...al reports were normal(no problems) the same in
| device manager. when i installed WinXP it added "F" drive
| and all was fine. now "F" drive is intermittant and i
| cannot change it back. MY Computer>Manage>change drive
| letter (this doesn't fix)
| also, here is a list of things that are ka-put!
| 1)CAD (Computer Aided Design)software seems fine, except
| the window used for the work are blank...the curser will
| highlight as if able to "pick" but cannot see what is
| going on (cannot reinstall due to CD ROM drive
| intermittant change.)
| 2) CD ROM drive letter changes intermittantly, and
| again ,i cannot change it to "f" which works fine.
| device manager indicates all are working and enabled.when
| i attampt to "go back" when the drive was working, all
| problems are still there.
| 3) upon trying to re-install WindowsXP, message that:
| cannot find previous O/S, but i can still find Win98
| folders and backups. i also get the messege: windows
| root>system>hal.dll file not found. re-install hal.dll
| file. can't do that because the CD ROM drive is
| intermittant. and sometimes i can insert a CD but the
| drive is not accessable even though the CD ROM drawer
| opens and closes intermittantly.
| 4) i had the WORM/BLASTER was able to fix through
| Symantic web site.
| 5) i have noticed in my hotamil for e-mail, that i am
| recieving messeges that i have sent e-mails that are
| infected, however, i have NOT e-mailed to the addresses
| in the error messege.
| 6) why do i see NT files in my system when i am not (and
| do not want to )run NT? is it safe to delete any NT files
| since i am using a FAT32 system?
| i have downloaded a majority of the service packs and
| such from Microsoft's site, are these stopping my
| attempts?
| my PC is set to administrator and not networked.
| ANY help will be greatly appreciated. PLEASE respond to:
| (e-mail address removed) as it is VERY hard to find a
| response in this forum.
| thank you in advance and i sincerely appreciate any help
| i can get!