Popoo ram virus?

[James]

My PC was running slowly - applications taking an age to close. I've got
McAfee VirusScan installed (latest version - 22/10/03) and showed nothing.
After crashing, and restarting the PC showed a 'boot disk failure' - all
files were hidden (disk was shown as 0 bytes with no data on it), couldn't
get into windows or do anything. The word 'Popoo' was shown when trying to
find files in dos.
Restarted again and did the same - no visible files and wouldn't load
windows - crashed after 'verifying dmi pool data'. Left the PC a while and
restarted - no problems! Loaded into windows fine - no virus detected by
McAfee VirusScan (latest 22/10/03), stinger etc...

I'm thinking this virus only stores files in the RAM - but shouldn't a
restart get rid of it?

Everything seems to be fine now, but what was it?! Anyone heard of
'popoo' - I can't find anything about it on the web - not under a virus
anyway.

Thanks
James

 

[optikl]

My PC was running slowly - applications taking an age to close. I've got
McAfee VirusScan installed (latest version - 22/10/03) and showed nothing.
After crashing, and restarting the PC showed a 'boot disk failure' - all
files were hidden (disk was shown as 0 bytes with no data on it), couldn't
get into windows or do anything. The word 'Popoo' was shown when trying to
find files in dos.
Restarted again and did the same - no visible files and wouldn't load
windows - crashed after 'verifying dmi pool data'. Left the PC a while and
restarted - no problems! Loaded into windows fine - no virus detected by
McAfee VirusScan (latest 22/10/03), stinger etc...

I'm thinking this virus only stores files in the RAM - but shouldn't a
restart get rid of it?

Everything seems to be fine now, but what was it?! Anyone heard of
'popoo' - I can't find anything about it on the web - not under a virus
anyway.

Thanks
James

If it were me, as a minimum, I'd back up everything of value on that system,
as it looks to be a hardware problem.
The fact that you're having crashes and having problems verify file
structures isn't a good sign. I doubt you have an intermittent trojan
responsible for this.
Here, read this: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000474.htm and this:
http://www.computing.net/os2/wwwboard/forum/1280.html

 

[Bart Bailey]

In Message-ID:<ijinb.44941$HS4.190314@attbi_s01> posted on Tue, 28 Oct

If it were me, as a minimum, I'd back up everything of value on that system,
as it looks to be a hardware problem.

Maybe he could run the OnTrack EasyRecovery SMART tests,
to see if any alerts have been given.
http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/

 

[James]

Thanks for your help - I've back-uppped everything useful.

The system was only running slowly the last time I used it before restarting
and having the problems.
All appears fine with the harddrive - verifys every time on startup - it was
only that one time when all files were hidden. I'm 99% sure there is no
virus / trojan etc. on the system now - or not that any virus guard or scan
can find anyway.

'Popoo' was definitely shown above in dos where it said the harddrive
consisted of 0bytes with 3gb free - can anyone shed any light on what
'popoo' actually is or what it represents?

Thanks
James

 

[Derek]

Thanks for your help - I've back-uppped everything useful.

The system was only running slowly the last time I used it before restarting
and having the problems.
All appears fine with the harddrive - verifys every time on startup - it was
only that one time when all files were hidden. I'm 99% sure there is no
virus / trojan etc. on the system now - or not that any virus guard or scan
can find anyway.

The symptoms you've described can be caused by a hard disk drive
having intermittent problems. Assuming you're running windows
XP/2000, then, using event viewer, you may find disk errors in the
system event log.

'Popoo' was definitely shown above in dos where it said the harddrive
consisted of 0bytes with 3gb free - can anyone shed any light on what
'popoo' actually is or what it represents?

It's essentially random cr*p (pun intended) being returned where the
disk can not be read correctly.

Derek