Weird crash - long read warning

[marx404]

We have a central secured wireless Dell PC at work that all the salespeople
use at work. It has run trouble free for a few years, running XP Home, SP2.
Yesterday something weird happened. I cam in and my coworker who is an
senior citizen technophobe, told me that the cleaners that night had knocked
the plug out of the wall and that it took him and another to plug it back in
and get the PC back running. Incidentally, they stupidly leave the computer
running and not logged off, so it is also a given that the cleaning crew
probably goes online at night when they shouldn't. (I changed that policy
yesterday after fixing the PC).

When the old guy finished checking his sports news, (he never closes the
browser, he only minimizes it) I closed everything and tried to open my
customer database, gone. Got a dialogue files necessary to run PCSync were
missing. Tried opening IE7, got an hourglass instead. So, I did what I would
normally do, I ran System Restore, using a Checkpoint from the previous day.

After system Restore completed and rebooted, I got the Windows boot screen,
then a BSOD "GDI32.dll error". I got the Dell boot dick and copied over a
fresh file, then rebooted. Another BSOD, "WINSRV error". So I copied over
winsrv.dll, still got same BSOD. So I decided to boot to the CD (OEM DELL
XPHome SP1) and run a repair install. All seemd to be ok afterwards, except
now IE won't run. I get a pop-up saying dll library links missing. Sh*t.
Next step, I reinstalled SP2.
That should fix it right? wrong.

After reapplying SP2, IE now worked but now the USB ports won't work. The
did before I installed SP2. I was able to reinstall my PCSync database and
everything else works. I had to change out all USB devices to PS2 (mouse,
etc.)

What fun, not. Why did the USB suddenly stop working? and what could have
caused al this trouble? If the old man left the PC running with IE open and
someone knocked the power plug out of the wall, would that have corrupted
system files? Supposedly this PC has MacAfee running on it, bit could a
virus have still infected it? Why would my PCSync app be partially
uninstalled? Weird, huh? Anyone have any clue what could have happened? TIA.

 

[Gerry]

Please post copies of the Event Viewer error reports from the System log
for the last boot.

You can access Event Viewer by selecting Start, Control Panel,
Administrative Tools, and Event Viewer. When researching the meaning
of the error, information regarding Event ID, Source and Description
are important.

A tip for posting copies of Error Reports! Run Event Viewer and double
click on the error you want to copy. In the window, which appears is a
button resembling two pages. Click the button and close Event
Viewer.Now start your message (email) and do a paste into the body of
the message. Make sure this is the first paste after exiting from
Event Viewer.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[marx404]

I got a chance to briefly check the EV System Log today at work. Weirder,
the only errors that show for the day or the previous are for NetBT and
McShield (corporate McAffee). No IE or other system errors and nothing
logged at the time of the crash.

 

[marx404]

Follow-up. I scanned the drive with Trend Micro Online and it resulted in 7
viruses, including MY_Doom as well as some malware. Disinfected, uninstalled
McrAppy AV and installed a Avira, scanned and cleaned one more virus.
Scanned with new AV again, Avira came up with 3 malwares and I deleted them.
Scanned one more time, all is clear and the PC is safe and secure. Well, now
I think I know what caused all the weirdness.