FORMAT C: (does not work)...

I have another serious trojan problem, reformatting the other machine, in a hurry because this one might be infected too, and FORMAT C: does not work, help, please?

PS, NOTHING caught the damn things except Black Ice.

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

[This message has been edited by cyndy10 (edited 12-01-2001).]

First off, are you booting from a floppy disk? If there was an infection, make sure the floppy disk is locked (the tab at the top should be up so you can see through the hole).

If you are using a boot disk, does it have the file FORMAT.COM on it? When you format the drive, do it from the A drive typing:
format c:

Unless your computer has EZBIOS or equivalent installed, this should work. If you do have EZBIOS, do not put the boot disk in until instructed to do so by the EZBIOS program.
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My
Two Cents
Dennis
Politalk

Thanks, it's reformatting now, I;m in a major dilema though, before I did this, for the last few days I have had no CD-ROM drive, it's GONE, no drive letter. I don't think I deleted it. I did have a "W" for a couple days though...

Also, the CD-ROM was working fine, the door was stuck shut though but I could get it to open and operate if I shut down. There was power and all... I do have an extra one but I'd like to avoid the switch if I can.

I'm hoping that whatever happened will resolve itself by the reformat, any thoughts before I try to put in the CD?

One more thing, I have done this several times but my brain is not with me, could someone type in the instructions for how to reinstall WIN98se? The commands? I have the CABS on a CD, will that work or do I have to use the WIN98 CD and get the service pack?

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

I made a fresh boot disk off the WIN98 CD, and the A: prompt says "NO VALID CD ROM DEVICE DRIVERS SELECTED"

Do I have to go edit the autoexec.bat, remove the "rem" line? I'm looking on the net, but some reassurance would really be appreciated...

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

Please post the contents of the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files from your boot diskette, and we'll try to fix your CD-ROM driver problem.

the config.sys was empty and the auto exec.bat said something about the CD ROM driver, I already changed it out though because it didn't detect the drive and it was easier than I thought, then, it seems as if the CDROM is detected but C Drive is not. I can see the word Atapi as the screen whizzes by then it says I have 1 drive. Then it goes on to say that the drive available is not FAT or FAT32 and that I may need to partition or I may have had a bad virus... I did have Melissa and Papa, and I got rid of one, not sure which.

So do I need to do a dos virus scan or what? Is it normal to see the CD ROM and call that "1 drive"?? The C Drive was fine before...

At the A prompt I entered fdisk /status, and it now says:

NO FIXED DISKS PRESENT.

(do they mean fixed - not broken, - or fixed, stationary?)

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

In CMOSS, it's NOT detecting the C Drive, although the temperture gauge and all is functioning. I tried F3 a dozen times, still sees only C now.

Help?

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

If you are seeing the message 'No Fixed Disks Present' it means that fdisk cannot detect any hard (fixed) disk drives. Does your BIOS detect your hard drive? There should be some indication of this when you boot, or you can go into the BIOS setup to check.

Regarding your CD-ROM drivers, there should be a line in your CONFIG.SYS file that loads the hardware-specific part of the DOS CD-ROM driver, and a corresponding line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file that loads MSCDEX. You should get a message from each line at boot indicating whether each loaded successfully. If your press 'F8' during the boot process, you should get a boot menu that will allow you to select options. Shift + 'F8' at the options menu will boot step by step so you can see what is happening without the messages zipping off the screen before you can read them.

ok, I'm trying not to panic.

I think I have a C drive as long as the CD ROM is not connected. ...after several failed attempts I went back to CMOSS and tried F3... I got the C drive to recognize and was able to get the C prompt and it says 46,611MB in CMOSS. I think it was a loose connection at the MB thing on the side where the ribbon cable plugs in.

Then I reconnected the CD ROM and it never goes past the first few lines, not even to where it says IDE - detected etc... it's stuck right after the Trend ChipAway Virus thing and it says WAIT...

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

It sounds like you have one of three possible problems when you reconnect your CD-ROM drive.

1. The ribbon cable is not connected properly to the CD-ROM drive. There will be a colored line on one side of the ribbon cable. This indicates pin 1, and should be connected to the edge of the connector on the CD-ROM drive that has the '1' or 'Pin 1' marking. This mark can be hard to find, but it is usually on the side of the connector closest to the power connector.

2. The jumpers on the hard drive and CD-ROM drive are not set properly. If the hard drive and the CD-ROM drive are on the same ribbon cable, the hard drive will need to be set to 'Master with Slave' if that setting is available, or 'Master' if there is no 'Master with Slave' setting. The CD-ROM drive should be set to 'Slave'. There should be information on how to set the jumpers printed somewhere on the drives.

3. The CD-ROM drive could be dead. If you have a power light and the tray opens, this is not likely, but possible.

A fourth possiblity:

If this is an older 2x or so CD-ROM drive, it may not be an IDE drive. The connector is the same size, but it's for a propriatary controller.

I'm back.

My 2nd computer had a serious malfunction, my Hard Disk "failed"... My DOS is - to say the least, is very bad, but I did manager to get it back on and running in Windows, and even online. I'm going to reread the old replies and read the replies I never got to last night and keep trying.

Since I don't really know WHY I had a disk failure and if it will happen again, if I disappear, it's not because I'm being rude, I'm offline and messing with DOS. Thank GOD I had a DOS For Dummies book..., and the Norton Rescue Disk didn't hurt either, it didn't find anything but the computer came back on when it was done..

I'm caught up.

The original CD-ROM is not old, it was new in January and is 48X... I switched for one I KNOW works and I switched the jumper to slave, it had a diagram on it. So do I now check the HD? It had a CD-ROM on it already as a slave and should be set correctly. I switched the jumper on the CD-ROM because it was a Master on the computer I am using now.

Also, when the *dead* computer booted up a couple of days ago, I noticed the 1.2Gig processor announcement that pops up now says 750MHz. This changed all by itself. DOes that mean someone changed it, as a way to tell me they were *deep* inside my machine? How *deep* is that? How can I change it back? I have the book that came with my computer, it is definitely either 1.0GHz or 1.2GHz. And it always said 1.2 before.

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

[This message has been edited by cyndy10 (edited 12-01-2001).]

If your seeing "Trend ChipAway Virus" it means your onboard virus protection is enabled in the cmos. If you don't disable it, you can't format C: (it prevents writing to the boot.)

OK, I changed that after I had formatted C. I had the CD-ROM drive working, then the floppy drive wouldn't work. I checked everything, then I had my husband check, he cleaned up the ribbons and wires and after he was done there was no CD-ROM OR floppy. So then I changed the ribbon connection on the floppy to the last one, skipping the middle. Now I have a floppy and a C drive. I'll disable the Virus protection.

In the meantime, another odd development. Since I have no CD-ROM I started thinking...

*oh no, not THAT again*

Yes, that again... I pulled out my Windows 3.1 disks. Guess what is almost finished loading?

Now, I know I'll never be happy with 3.1 and all, but it does afford me more than a virtual drive to work with, right? So what can I do with 3.1 do diagnose my CD-ROM problem? I can download diagnostic stuff and load it via floppy to Computer #1, or... *thinking AGAIN* ...can I set up the LAN and transfer WIN98 via cable...?

*done thinking*


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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

[This message has been edited by cyndy10 (edited 12-01-2001).]

WELL SO MUCH FOR THINKING. My DOS version is not compatible with the 3.1. Oh well. Any other bright ideas?

Another thing, as the computer begins to boot, I can hear the CD-ROM begin to engage as if it knows it will be needed, and in CMOSS, it is registered as installed, on the front screen it shows it is detected. Maybe the driver is wrong? I don't see how, I used the same startup disk on this computer.

Also, I went to look at the autoexec.bat and now when the computer boots it now wants "Windows Setup Disk #2... and to press any key to continue..."

Where did THAT come from? I WISH I had WIN98 on floppies, heck, I'm game at this point.

The weird thing about this is that on the 1st screen it ONLY shows the CD-ROM, it does not recognize the Hard Drive, then on the 2nd screen it shows everything, A Drive, C Drive, CD-ROM , then when the floppy boots I ask for CD-ROM support and then nothing, there is no CD-ROM drive, although I CAN get the Drive letter to give me a command prompt, it just says "can't read from CD-ROM drive" or something similar...

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

If you can boot from your floppy, and you have a newly formatted C: drive, type the following from the A: prompt:

SYS C:

Or, if you are re-formatting the C: drive, type: FORMAT C: /S

Either of these commands will put the system on the hard drive so you can boot to C: (You will still not have Windows on the C: drive, but you can then install a CD-ROM driver that I will e-mail you.)

If you send me your e-mail address, I'll send you a program that will install a generic IDE CD-ROM driver for you automatically.

OK, I have the contents of the floppy on C: drive. The screen, when I try to boot says this:

The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to Drice D.

MSCDEX version 2.25
Then some Microsoft version info..
DRIVE E: = MSCD0001 unit 0

To get help type help and press enter.

Anyway, does that help with the CD-ROM driver info? I have E: drive, but it just won't go.

My email addy is:
[email protected]

Tell me when to check it...

AND THANK YOU. I have a newly formatted floppy for it.

I want to partition this drive but I have never FDISK'ed before, I read back and found this: http://personal.picusnet.com/jtmurphy/fdisk.htm and this: http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q255867

The drive is 43.116Gigs, what sizes of partitions would you recommend? I'll format it again after that, but if I pertition the drive maybe I could avoid a major pain the next time.


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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

[This message has been edited by cyndy10 (edited 12-01-2001).]

I have sent you the files for a generic DOS IDE CD-ROM driver, however, if your current boot disk is showing that MSCDEX loads correctly, but you can't do a 'DIR E:' successfully, you may have a bad CD-ROM drive. If you were able to get the system files installed onto your C: drive, you should now be able to boot without a boot diskette to a C:> prompt. If you can, try installing the CD-ROM driver I sent you, then re-booting. If you get successful messages about the Samsung driver and MSCDEX loading OK, but you still can't get the CD-ROM drive to access any CD's, it may be time to try another CD-ROM drive.

jeesh...

CMOS lost its settings?
loose cables?
windows 3.1?
DOS (which version?)
(for this disk, you need fat 32 support.
win3.1 does not have fat 32 support.

an old norton disk? (for these drives, you need version four or up)

at least you are not afraid of getting in there, and you seem to know how a command line works.

in my way of thinking, in your working machine, you should boot off the cdrom to create a floppy.
(yes, that works too.)

you should do fdisk /mbr
(I suspect some nasty is still in there)

you should maybe also get CIH kill at symantec.

and above all, you should read a few relevant things in "butter".
(yes, it also has links to picusnet and microsoft, and it explains oodles of things you probably don't really need, but should be aware of...) http://discussions.virtualdr.com/For...ML/038724.html


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I think we forgot...

Kind regards, Jaak

1) CMOS lost its settings?
I have everything set to the defaults as of now.

2) loose cables?
Not a chance, checked that a dozen times.

3) windows 3.1?
*blush* - Yup, I'm desperate, had to try it.

4) DOS (which version?)
I dunno, but the computer was new in April 2001

5) (for this disk, you need fat 32 support.
win3.1 does not have fat 32 support.
*another blush* I KNEW THAT, but it slipped my mind... I also suspected the DOS would be incompatible, but hey, a girl's gotta try...

6) an old norton disk? (for these drives, you need version four or up)
It was Norton AV 2002, brand new trial

7) at least you are not afraid of getting in there, and you seem to know how a command line works.
LEARNED BY NECESITY, not a bit timid at the command line, it doesn't bite. When you are in the middle of an Internet game of WHOOP ASS with several hackers, well, you learn quick. START | RUN | ...command / and I are old friends now.

8) in my way of thinking, in your working machine, you should boot off the cdrom to create a floppy.
(yes, that works too.)
Should I switch it in CMOSS? Explain the process, never done it and want to be sure I understand exactly what you mean.

9) you should do fdisk /mbr
(I suspect some nasty is still in there)
SO DO I. That is a neat command - I looked it up, great idea. I also thought about the FORMAT C: /U command. Thoughts?

10) you should maybe also get CIH kill at symantec.
Never heard of it, but CIH sounds like a nasty bug to me. I'm on the way to symantec.

Thanks, I'll be right back.


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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

The CIH_Kill tool only works from DOS WITHIN WINDOWS, so I am getting something called F-Prot that will do the trick. I'll report back. I'm making the Sscdrom disk now and I'll report back soon. I think I am going to redo the MBR and use the F-Prot DOS AV tool first though...

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

I NEED TO COOK DINNER, GIVE ME 1 HOUR OR SO....

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1) AMD Athlon K7 1.2Ghz, 320Ram, onboard Audio and Video.
2) AMD K6/2 550Mhz, 194RAM, Monster Fusion, and ? Sound...
3) Linksys router and cable.

Cyndy consider installing the current hard drive from the down machine in the working computer as a slave. (set jumpers and reset when done) Then copying the windows cab files to that drive. Reinstall the hardrive in the non working computer and install windows from there.

Another option is to copy the complete "C" drive from the working computer to the slave drive. Most drive manufactures have utilities that do that easily. Some recommend deleting the compete Enum key from the registry and let windows find the correct hardware when it boots. I have never tried it but it should work.

This will also bump this back to the top.

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gary
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No question is hard if you know the answer.

I think you probably read the "how to"
in that long post I linked to.

duh, I forgot about that windows bit for CIHkill.

anyway, if a scan from a known clean recent AV rescue set from NAV 2002 did not find it, it wasn't there?

I trust you'll be up and running soon.
a while ago we had a very very long thread about security related matters
much of it is still relevant.

this was a summary http://discussions.virtualdr.com/For...ML/041590.html



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I think we forgot...

Kind regards, Jaak