USB stick causes blue screen of death

[Steve]

I have a dell 1705 with windows XP MCE2002 SP2. The other day, I was asked
to look at a file on a USB flash drive. Instantly upon plugging in the USB
drive, I got the "blue screen of death"! Rebooting normally failed - got
the blue screen. I booted in safe mode and ran chkdsk c: /f , twice, until
it showed no errors. Still, regular booting failed. Back in safe mode, I
rummaged around until I got to the virtual memory dialog at the control
panel "system -> advanced -> performance -> advanced -> virtual memory." I
reset the size of the paging file from 1536MB to "system managed size". I
rebooted and hooray, it's all good.

My question is this, how did the USB stick make the PC fail, and why did
changing the size of the paging file fix things?

 

[John]

I have a dell 1705 with windows XP MCE2002 SP2. The other day, I was asked
to look at a file on a USB flash drive. Instantly upon plugging in the USB
drive, I got the "blue screen of death"! Rebooting normally failed - got
the blue screen. I booted in safe mode and ran chkdsk c: /f , twice, until
it showed no errors. Still, regular booting failed. Back in safe mode, I
rummaged around until I got to the virtual memory dialog at the control
panel "system -> advanced -> performance -> advanced -> virtual memory." I
reset the size of the paging file from 1536MB to "system managed size". I
rebooted and hooray, it's all good.

My question is this, how did the USB stick make the PC fail, and why did
changing the size of the paging file fix things?

Not sure about your issue but I had something similar a while ago. I have an
add-on 2 port USB 2.0 card in my (old) desktop PC. As we all know the USB
ports are in the back on the PC. USB flash drive insertion can be quite a
difficult task. One day I tried to plug a USB flash drive... *poof*... my PC
restarted. It restarted just fine. No errors in the event logs. However, one
of the 2 ports got fried. It doesn't work anymore. I must've shorted it.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

The flash drive may have been compromised. Now there's a very good chance
that your PC and any flash drives inserted since the incident may be
infected, despite the recover steps you've taken.

 

[Steve]

Not sure about your issue but I had something similar a while ago. I have
an add-on 2 port USB 2.0 card in my (old) desktop PC. As we all know the
USB ports are in the back on the PC. USB flash drive insertion can be
quite a difficult task. One day I tried to plug a USB flash drive...
*poof*... my PC restarted. It restarted just fine. No errors in the event
logs. However, one of the 2 ports got fried. It doesn't work anymore. I
must've shorted it.

John,
I tested the USB port that I plugged that fateful stick into - it still
works fine.

 

[Steve]

Anything is possible but I tend to doubt it. I never put that stick in my
PC before, and it didn't even go through thtough the "new hardware"
sequence. The computer blew up literally instantly upon plugging it in. I
believe that an infected file never had the chance to get across to my PC.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

I think the answer is to give the usb drive back to its owner and forget
about it.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

And run a /thorough/ check for hijackware, including posting your hijackthis
log to an appropriate forum.

Unexplained computer behavior may be caused by deceptive software
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827315

Checking for/Help with Hijackware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm
http://aumha.org/a/quickfix.htm
http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=5878
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction
http://mvps.org/winhelp2002/unwanted.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/data/prevention.htm
http://inetexplorer.mvps.org/tshoot.html
http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/Malware_Defence.htm
http://defendingyourmachine2.blogspot.com/
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

When all else fails, HijackThis v2.0.2
(http://aumha.org/downloads/hijackthis.exe) is the preferred tool to use.
It will help you to both identify and remove any hijackware/spyware with
assistance from an expert. **Post your log to
http://forums.spybot.info/forumdisplay.php?f=22,
http://castlecops.com/forum67.html,
http://forums.subratam.org/index.php?showforum=7,
http://aumha.net/viewforum.php?f=30, or other appropriate forums for review
by an expert in such matters, not here.**
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Related: http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28888