No CD Roms Running out of HD Space

[towjoe42]

I recently got some virus from a friends CD rom he made for me.
He is supposed to be a computer professional but found out he does not believe in Anti Virus, Firewall, or Windows Updates.
I installed one of the programs he had on the CD rom, (key Gen) and when opened my AVG immediately recognized the virus's.
It was real hard to eliminate, but thought I got it all.
I un-installed the Key Gen program, used Trend mICRO house call, AVG, Spyware killer, and ad-aware.
That seemed to get it.

I then started having problems with start up. Kept doing physical memory dump, and checking hard disk.
As well when I start up I get the notice that "windows has recovered from a serious error".

It got to the point that I could not start up windows not even in safe mode.
I tried to re-install win xp and that did not seem to work, said I did not have enough hard drive space. This was when my CD roms were working.
now they are not shown, and new hardware wizard will not install them, says cannot find device drivers.

I keep getting notice that I am low on hard drive space, and there is only less than 200 MB left.

so this is what is happening. any suggestions.

I have win xp, a cd rom drive, a cd rw drive,
128mb ram, and 6GB hard drive.

[greyeyezz]

Yes. Do not use key-gens and pirated software.

[Abhoth]

So let's see..... sounds like initially the problem may have been system restore was still going while you were working on getting rid of the bad boys. And may have been restored by Windows, it likes to do that now and again all by it's happy self.

So, first... if you can get into the system, disable system restore. Right click My Computer then go to Properties... once that applet opens there should be a System Restore tab, go there and disable it...

You'll also need to do a disk cleanup and go through your hard drive and get rid of some data..... along with some rescans and such.

But for now we need you to verify what your status is... can you get into the OS now? And you also know your friend in not a computer professional, right? If nothing else, scan an disc you get from that source before any action eh? ;-)

[dunedin]

Hi towjoe42

If you can get into XP go to the link below and download the fix. It might put your CD drives back into explorer
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_d...cd_dvd_fix.htm

I agree with the messages which Windows is sending you about being short of disk space That`s an awful wee hard drive for XP to live in. We normally advise putting XP on a partition of no less than 8GB and then all your other stuff on another partition.

I don`t think you have enough RAM either. Microsoft suggests at least 256MB but you will find that your system will fly if you give it 512MB

So if you want to see XP at its best, maybe in the future you should buy a bigger hard drive and put in more RAM too.
I promise you will see a big difference

Elaine

[towjoe42]

Thanks for the suggestions. Was planning on getting more memory and a bigger hard drive today anyway.

When I do should I use nortons ghost, or partition majic?
I know how to install a secondary hard drive and use Ghost to copy everything from the small one to the larger one, then remove the old one and put the new one as primary HD.

then would I use partition majic to set up the smaller partition for win XP and the other for applications and files?

Or is there an easier way to perform this whold procedure?

I gave up on the mess I mentioned on last post.
I never have figured out how to format the hard drive from Winxp.
so I used a win98 se start up boot floppy and installed win98SE then when done used the winxp cd to install winXP.
Now I am installing my application CD's.

One pecular thing I noticed when doing FDISK, FORMAT, and installing both win98SE and then winXP was most of the words were mis-spelled in all the dialog paragraphs through the entire start up and setup and installation procedures.
This made it kind of hard to select items in the setup procedure.
What caused that? Is there a virus somewhere in the BIOS or MEMORY?
If so, is there a way to scan them with some other Utility or Web site online scan?


The first time I connected to the internet to do the WinXP updates, Zone Alarm, And AVG anti-virus, and Yahoo Toolbar, I got hit with about twenty Back door Trojans. I found this out when I ran AVG for the first time.

I also am going to install Express Assist this time to back up all my Address book and favorites.

[Abhoth]

Unsure what would cause the misspelling issue... sounds like a real fun deal! ;-)

Considering the issues you've been having with virii and such I'd be tempted to pull the 6gig completely. Upgrade the RAM and hard disk and do a clean install of WinXP ... during the install it'll prompt you for the partitioning and such if you wish to do that.
I run a 10gig system partition here with WinXP Pro, have about 2gig to spare in that partition.....
Now, if you're going to dual boot it you'll want to put Win98 on there first, then WinXP... in their own partitions.
Once you have a clean install you can hook up the 6gig drive and carefully recover your data... I'd scan that drive heavily though before you pull anything over!

If you boot from the WinXP CD you'll get to the place where you can format and partition...

You can scan online here....

You might want to pick up a firewall too...

[dunedin]

Also. since you gathered some trojans, here is a good trojan scanner to run too.

Trojan Scan http://www.windowsecurity.com/trojanscan/

Elaine