sudden misc. failures

[Me]

Continuing saga...

I've been experiencing sudden re-boots in XP Pro. Tried many things to
repair this. It happened again when I ran a virus scan on a CDR. I think
I've found a virus attached to an archived file. I duplicated this by
scanning the disc again, and sure enough -- reboots when it hits a file on
the CDR. (Scans too fast to identify which file.)

But...

Windows picked the failure up this time and issued an error report that,
when processed, showed up as an "error caused by a device driver" (unable to
identify what driver or device).

My inclination is to simply discard this CDR, but I am confused by this
"device driver" identification. There is data on the CDR that I want, but
not at this price; on the other hand . . .

Any thoughts?

 

[Guest]

In my experience that type of device driver error has been accurate. I would check the CD on a friend's computer who has a current antivirus update. If the CD's OK, disable suspicious non-vital device drivers in Device Manager, a button in the Hardware tab of the System applet in the Control Panel.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I've been experiencing sudden re-boots in XP Pro. Tried many things to
repair this. It happened again when I ran a virus scan on a CDR. I think
I've found a virus attached to an archived file. I duplicated this by
scanning the disc again, and sure enough -- reboots when it hits a file on
the CDR. (Scans too fast to identify which file.)

But...

Windows picked the failure up this time and issued an error report that,
when processed, showed up as an "error caused by a device driver" (unable to
identify what driver or device).

My inclination is to simply discard this CDR, but I am confused by this
"device driver" identification. There is data on the CDR that I want, but
not at this price; on the other hand . . .

You have something that is causing the crash - and the system's
'automatically restart' is cutting in. Turn this off: in Control Panel
- System - Advanced, click Settings in the Startup and Recovery section.
There uncheck 'automatically restart'.

Go to My Computer , r-click the drive, Properties, and in Autoplay
select Mixed content and the action as 'Take no action'. That will stop
it autorunning a potential nasty.

Make a partition on your hard disk, and copy the contents of the CD to
it, folder by folder, with the 'check files in real time' virus scan off
.. You should then be able to virus scan the hard disk without such
troubles. My guess is that the file in question is being invoked in the
CD's autorun.inf file