Remove Computer Virus

Hard drive failure. What I did

Yesterday I had to change my hard drive and had a few issues that I was able to fix.

The problems started in the morning when my wife called me and told me that the computer would not boot. We have been having trouble with our hard drive for a while now and I was able to fix each time by just reseting the PC. This time though the computer was not seeing the hard drive. Using tools and knowledge that I had I had to do the following:

Install new hard drive

First of all I had to install the new hard drive. I was able to do this by disconnecting my CDR and leaving myDVD drive, two old hard drives in the machine, plus a new 80 gig drive with a 16 meg cache. I was unsuccessful at loading Windows though as I kept getting an error as the Windows setup was starting, after loading the drivers I would get an error that it could not load the setup. I switched to my CDR from the DVD drive and had no problems.

Setup Windows

I successfully did a quick format of the new drive (thanks for that new feature Windows XP) and successfully loaded Windows XP. This is pretty basic as I use a CD that not only has Windows XP on it but also has Service Pack 2 for XP slipstreamed onto it.

Rebuild hard drive partition table

After I booted to Windows I saw that my old drive was not showing up as a drive or a partition. If I right clicked on the partition in Disk Management it knew that the drive existed but could no longer find a partition on it. Windows Disk Management said that the drive was healthy, My first attempt was to create a partition but not to format the partition as I did not want to lose the data for good. I fought with this for a couple of hours as I did not back up lately and the wife would kill me if I lost all of her data. In the end I was able to use Test Disk from the Filesystem tools of the Dos Ultimate Boot Disk. It ends up that the partition table had a start but not an end and the program was able to fix this….whew I would have been in trouble….

Migrate Windows and Office data

After I had the old drive back I went into the BIOS and chose to boot from that drive. I was able to boot to the old Windows XP installation easily enough and did not want to keep any of the data there but thought it would be a good idea to transfer my Windows settings using the file and settings transfer wizard in Windows. I saved the settings using the wizard and chose this as the old computer and in the destination I chose a folder I created on the new hard drive called “transfer files”. I then decided to transfer only my settings as I knew that I was going to have to reload my software and would be manually copying over the file structure from the old drive to the new drive.

I also moved all of my settings for MS Office using the Save my Settings Wizard from the MS Office 2003 tools section. I was able to copy the settings, which come across as an OPS file to the same place as my Windows Transfer Files and Settings.

After I had moved the settings and files over I rebooted and went back into the BIOS and changed my first boot to the new hard drive and it’s windows XP installation. I was very happy to see that after running the wizrds for transfering the settings and after reloading MS Office 2003 I was able to move over my mail folder and saw all of my email, contacts, and best of all my email addresses (Still had to fill in the passwords for email but that’s OK). After a relogon I also had all of my desktop settings back includig the background picture of my daughter and the animated Pingu cursors.

Copy data from bad drive

Next I just did a blanket move of all of the files from the old hard drive to new into a new folder that I created in the root of the drive. I did this simply to save time as I am not sure about the stability of the old hard drive and fear that I will lose it again.

Reload software

I have started reloading software but as usual I am going to be slow about the move this time. I will install some of my favorite freewares and will install Streets and Trips, Adobe Acrobat, Macromedia Dreamweaver and Adobe Photoshop Elements and that’s it.

I have roughly followed about half of my Reloading Windows tutorial but since I have both drives functioning at the moment I have tried to cut some corners and make this work well as well as getting my wife up and running quickly for her work stuff this morning.

Remove Computer Virus stuff to buy

Pal Pc Tracker - Stops Computer Theft!
Computer software that allows you to find your Pc anywhere in the world if it's ever lost or stolen!

How To Make Money Working From Home!
A practical, Step-By-Step guide to start making money on the Internet using your computer!

Cleaning Computers - Secrets Exposed!
How To Start Your Own Profitable Computer Cleaning Business - Step By Step Business Kit!

Remove Computer Virus Recent Stories from around the internet

remove computer virus

System32 is a virus that infects your Windows directory and turns it into a Sega game. Microsoft makes software to remedy this called "My Computer". It comes pre-installed with most Windows systems and can most likely be found on your desktop. To ...

About System 32 - Toms Hardware

When computer programs are running, they use something named a "call stack" internally. This thing keeps track of where a program is and what it's doing. It also includes important information used by the program. Suppose the user is asked for a ...

Study finds major computer virus threat - TG Daily

Publisher's description of F-Secure Anti-Virus From F-Secure : With F-Secure Anti-Virus 2009, you can open e-mail attachments and use your computer without any fear of virus infections, spyware intrusion or malicious programs that can take over your ...

F-Secure Anti-Virus 2009 - Download.com

Researchers at Fortinet say you can't view this video because it's really a Trojan horse. (Credit: Fortinet) For most Facebook users, it's common to receive a message from a friend urging them to visit a page containing a video. But one video ...

Facebook worm feeds off Google's reputation - CNET News

Publisher's description of AVG Anti-Virus 8.0.81 From AVG Technologies : This antivirus program for your home or office computer is easy on system resources and simple to install and use. The fully automated update process will keep your computer ...

AVG Anti-Virus 8.0.81 - Download.com

See also: » Software Review – NetAdvantage For .NET Suite- NetAdvantage For ASP.NET 2008 Volume 1 From Infragistics » Software Review: NetAdvantage For .NET Suite- NetAdvantage For Windows Forms 2008 Volume 1 From Infragistics » Where Content Is ...

The Vundo Virus and Me - Blogcritics.org

There’s been some particularly nasty viruses and spyware going around lately. One that specifically comes to mind is Win AntiVirus 2009 (sometimes it’s called Win AntiVirus 2008). Win AntiVirus 2009 is really spyware instead of a virus. Today ...

Win AntiVirus 2009 - Baytown Sun

RealNetworks continues to wage its public relations campaign against the MPAA. The maker of digital media tools on Monday reminded customers who downloaded a free 30-day trial of RealDVD that the trial is ending and the film industry is preventing ...

Digital Media - CNET News

During the test, Kaspersky IS 2009 was installed on an Intel Pentium D 3.4GHz (Dual Core), 1024MB RAM, with Windows XP SP3. Patches and other software were kept current on the lab machine. Kaspersky is not for the faint of heart. The installation ...

Review: Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 - Thetech Herald

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ The pain that sent Julianne Hough from "Dancing with the Stars" to the hospital turned out to be more serious than a stomach ache. The 20-year-old professional dancer has been diagnosed with endometriosis, a common condition in ...