HDD failiure or virus?

[Skotak]

Windows 2000 crashed. Boot unsucessful (Missing system error). To save
data, I connected it to another machine, but couldn't open any files
(except small files, for example .txt). When I removed this HDD from
good computer, I have noticed that HDD that was connected to IDE on
same cable, has created exact image of bad hdd. I could see the same
files, but size of files was 0kb. Currently I don't want to touch this
HDD, until I know what happend to recover the data.

I took the original bad hdd and plugged it back to old machine.
Because I though it could be a virus, I run antivirus from booting
floppy. Didn't find anything (including RAM, boot sector etc), but
changed my file structure to scrabled letters (files an folders). Run
check disk, created file full of CHK000... folders. When booting bios,
HDD shows 9GB instead of 14GB. When I run complete virus test, it
works for many hours without finish, uncovering files "cannot complete
virus check, because files are locked".

Is it possible I got a virus? What happend to the other HDD that was
connected to the bad one?

Healthy system:

Win XP Home
SATA HDD (system): 70GB
IDE HDD (master): 120GB (HDD that has the copy of bad hdd files with
0k size)
Dual RAM: 1GB
Processor: 3GHz 800Hz bus

Infected/bad system:
Win 2000
14GB HDD
Crash happened exactly when I turned off Zone Alarm firewall (if there
is any connection).


Thanks for any clues how to recover my data (mainly on healthy IDE
HDD).

Radim Schreiber

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Windows 2000 crashed. Boot unsucessful (Missing system error). To save
data, I connected it to another machine, but couldn't open any files
(except small files, for example .txt). When I removed this HDD from
good computer, I have noticed that HDD that was connected to IDE on
same cable, has created exact image of bad hdd. I could see the same
files, but size of files was 0kb. Currently I don't want to touch this
HDD, until I know what happend to recover the data.

I took the original bad hdd and plugged it back to old machine.
Because I though it could be a virus, I run antivirus from booting
floppy. Didn't find anything (including RAM, boot sector etc), but
changed my file structure to scrabled letters (files an folders). Run
check disk, created file full of CHK000... folders. When booting bios,
HDD shows 9GB instead of 14GB. When I run complete virus test, it
works for many hours without finish, uncovering files "cannot complete
virus check, because files are locked".

Is it possible I got a virus? What happend to the other HDD that was
connected to the bad one?

Healthy system:

Win XP Home
SATA HDD (system): 70GB
IDE HDD (master): 120GB (HDD that has the copy of bad hdd files with
0k size)
Dual RAM: 1GB
Processor: 3GHz 800Hz bus

Infected/bad system:
Win 2000
14GB HDD
Crash happened exactly when I turned off Zone Alarm firewall (if there
is any connection).


Thanks for any clues how to recover my data (mainly on healthy IDE
HDD).

Radim Schreiber

Download and run the diagnostic program that your
hard disk manufacturer makes available on his home site.