Hardware icons question

[JimL]

Since I copied my XP Pro system from a southbound hard drive to a new,
larger drive I've had new icons appear in "Mycomputer." I'd lke to know if
there is any significance to the change. BTW, this is no joke.

Some of the hard drive and/or partition icons appear with a hand holding up
the hard drive (in the icon picture).

I just learned that the hands don't stay on the same drives/partitions all
the time. That is, all the hands were on my second (external) HD. I just
corrected an out of order drive letter on the first partition of that second
"HD." Thereupon the "holding hand" jumped from it to the last partition on
my first (internal) HD. Now that poor, helpless D2P1 partition has no hand
holding it up - omigosh!

Is there anything important about "hands?" Did an evil spirit put the hands
in there?

Thanks

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Since I copied my XP Pro system from a southbound hard drive to a new,
larger drive I've had new icons appear in "Mycomputer." I'd lke to know if
there is any significance to the change. BTW, this is no joke.

Some of the hard drive and/or partition icons appear with a hand holding up
the hard drive (in the icon picture).

I just learned that the hands don't stay on the same drives/partitions all
the time. That is, all the hands were on my second (external) HD. I just
corrected an out of order drive letter on the first partition of that second
"HD." Thereupon the "holding hand" jumped from it to the last partition on
my first (internal) HD. Now that poor, helpless D2P1 partition has no hand
holding it up - omigosh!

Is there anything important about "hands?" Did an evil spirit put the hands
in there?

Thanks

The hand shows that the drive/directory is shared.
Unless you are at a network with one or more computers,
the share symbol should not be there, and might mean
an infected system, and might be remotely exploited.
Right-click on the drive/directory with the share symbol
and select "sharing and security", to remove the share.
Then scan your system with spybot/adaware/rootkit scanner,
the last one to be found at a Microsoft site.

 

[JimL]

when you did the HDD upgrade did you leave all other internal/external
drives attached. If you did then you really should have disconnected them
cos drive letter and file allocations sometimes get changed.

Nail on head!

Thanks

 

[JimL]

?? Just paranoid or engaging in high risk activites?

With all the freaks out there running high speed scanning computers just
surfing the internet IS a high risk activity.

 

[JimL]

can you tell that to our IT chap, he's set all co comps to scan every
lunchtime which now takes 30 minutes.

If you snooze you lose. There were those who believed 9/11 couldn't happen.
The ratio of twisted minds to normal ones gets worse every day.

 

[JimL]

Ask him how often the scans turn up anything,

If it didn't happen yesterday it can't happen! Right.

 

[JimL]

I could say the same about UFOs landing in my back yard...

You know you're right. You should only run scans on days when you know
there will be an attack.

 

[JimL]

Daily scans do nothing to prevent the risk from surfing the
net. Many of today's malware are self-replicating and
updating as well as downloading many new viruses and trojans
to the point where daily scans are far less effective at
solving an infection than more basic problems like a dormant
virus sitting in an archived file somewhere.

If you feel the risk is surfing then look at point of entry.
Close the holes in the browser or switch browsers.

Similarly, there is a risk of your house being robbed but do
you routinely patrol every nook and cranny looking for an
intruder or do you lock the doors, install and alarm and
proceed about your business until you have cause to deviate
from your routine? There is reasonable precaution and
there is excess.

How do you schedule the arrival of malware?