also @ TechSpot: Google, Samsung unveil Chromebook, Chromebox with Chrome OS 19

TechSpot
Register now for a live online demo to see how the Office 365 suite of tools
- professional email, calendars, video conferencing, and file sharing -

Stubborn performance impedance, perhaps Virus/Malware/Spyware

Discussion in 'Virus and Malware Removal' started by 0mega, Jan 5, 2009.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
Page 2 of 2

  1. adweston Banned


    The best, most thorough and accurate way of fixing it is by going to the Recovery Console and typing "chkdsk c: /r" at the prompt.

    I've actually seen it where a Windows chkdsk in My Computer was run on a damaged drive and actually did MORE damage...

    Just my personal experience. Take it or leave it.
    adweston, Jan 7, 2009
    #21

  2. Bobbye Helper on the Fringe

    You are surely doing a great job of confusing this user! Maybe somewhere, sometime on some system damage was done, but that is NOT how it usually works.

    I would appreciate it greatly if you stopped finding a fault with what is suggested. We have someone with a problem who is asking for help- how about let's give it instead of disputing everything the "other" person says!
    Bobbye, Jan 8, 2009
    #22

  3. adweston Banned

    This isn't about "finding fault". This is about sharing an experience with someone to save them headache. We fix dozens of computers every week of all makes and models. We don't sit on a message board, looking to extend our e-peen.

    If I share something on this board, it's because I've done this for 24 years, I've run into it and if I can save someone some headache, I will.

    In this case, I had a PC come in that I was doing the chkdsk on. Unaware of what would happen, after three scans I went on a service call. When I got back, I found out that one of my techs had restarted it and run a Windows chkdsk on it. It completely demolished everything I had done to that point. Windows refused to boot after that.

    Another time previous to that, I'd run a chkdsk on a computer. I got it into Windows and figured I'd do one more through Windows. It demoed the MFT and I had to start all over again.

    You've already blown it once in this thread. Do you really want to go for a second? Or would you rather air on the side of caution?

    EDIT: I was just grabbing a pop, and I just remembered a third time that this was an issue. In this case it had come in for sluggish performance. It was infected, but it was still running like crap afterwards. Because the tech was already in Windows no problems, we ran the chkdsk from the My Computer. The computer restarted, did it's repair, then restarted again. Unfortunately when it started back up, we got the now infamous message that it couldn't find c:\windows\system32\config.. etc. It completely tanked the drive. We repaired it, but... I always approach problems as "let's make it easier for the client...not harder".
    adweston, Jan 8, 2009
    #23

  4. Per Hansson TechSpot Server Guru

    You are threading a fine line here, accusing someone of "looking to extend our e-peen" whilst at the same time posting advice to the same thread!

    Running chkdsk inside of Windows is not possible, it will dismount the drive if repair is necessary, and since the System drive can't be dismounted for obvious reasons it is not caused by the fact that you "run chkdsk in Windows"
    Code:
    C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>chkdsk c: /f
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another
process.  Would you like to schedule this volume to be
checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N) n
    The reason for this is not in the way how chkdsk was run
    Chkdsk simply found a bad sector which happened to coincide with where Windows stores it's registry (which is quite common due to the fact that the registry is read and written to very oftenly thus wearing out these sectors on the harddrive more than the others)
    The way for it to "fix" the fault was to remove this sector, thus making the file inaccessible (probably stored under c:\found.000)
    Of course the issue was still there before running chkdsk too, if that area of the registry with the bad sector needed to be read the system would either lock up or slow down as the harddrive tried to read the data

    Your last advice to only run chkdsk from the recovery CD is very very very dangerous advice!
    Pre Windows XP SP1 the OS was not 48-bit LBA aware
    So if the harddrive is over 137GB in size and WinXP SP0 is used to run chkdsk the result will be data corruption after 137GB!
    Per Hansson, Jan 8, 2009
    #24

  5. adweston Banned

    That's why I said "that the computer rebooted, did it's check, then rebooted again after the check was complete"

    The reason I highlighted that is because the chkdsk does not work within Windows with the "automatically fix..." box checked.

    The advise is no more dangerous than if that same individual was using a Pre SP1 installation (neither of which has existed since what, 2001? 2002?) which would have the same result running it from "My Computer". Then we'll also just disregard the BIOS support stuff.. And... Size of drive when they installed their prehistoric XP, etc.

    But point taken.. I'll mention "as long as you didn't buy your Windows XP disk from Fred Flinstone's Computer Store you'll be fine".

    And finally, I know exactly why it did it in that ONE instance. Thank you for only highlighting one out of the three..

    Chkdsk /r will do the whole thing, including recovering information from bad sectors, that the one in Windows doesn't seem able to do as effectively.
    adweston, Jan 8, 2009
    #25

  6. Per Hansson TechSpot Server Guru

    adweston; The GUI for chkdsk reminds me of Win98, I never use it
    But anyway, that thing will just call chkdsk.exe anyway, there is no difference between them
    And yea, the /R switch is nice, but takes a decade to do since all empty space is scanned too, it takes the same time as a full format (and that is available in the GUI aswell, named; "Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors"
    I did not bring up your other 2 points because they are the same as the one I talked about, the Master File Table also gets corrupted because it is written to very frequently
    If multiple runs of chkdsk results in the OS crashing that just means the disk is unreliable (and that chkdsk finds new errors on each new scan)
    Per Hansson, Jan 8, 2009
    #26

  7. adweston Banned

    Actually, there are brands of drives that are worse than others for the MFT thing... Western Digital Caviar SEs being one of the biggest culprits.

    Yes, the chkdsk /r takes a long time.... because it's very thorough. Personally I'd rather not wait for it.. But then again I'd rather do it right than have to redo it in a week on my dime.

    EDIT: Just thought of something. It does call the same program.. But doesn't use the /r switch by default.
    adweston, Jan 8, 2009
    #27

  8. kimsland Ex-TechSpotter

    Personally I'm not interested in your examples of past experiences
    Generally it just wastes space in a thread, and doesn't help anyone, least of al the member wanting actual help here
    Take your experiences and all your other words of what "we" (meaning your company) do, to the meeting spot.

    Placing this irrelevant info on a member's thread is close to writing Spam (without saying at the end "call us" or something :suspiciou

    State your support (checkdisk, or whatever it may be) And then leave it at that
    But as stated to you strongly before (on a previous users thread) Do not counteract what other support state. Unless you are certain of its error. So far Bobbye has it right. So instead of hijacking his support in this thread, it would have been best just to lie low until his support was completed, then jump in with any more additions that you feel were missed

    There is a process of steps that support should tackle in the Virus & Malware removal forum. The obvious first step is to deal with the logs. Of which I never see you do on the level that others have normally.

    Next time sit and watch, and then add any further info once the member has been confirmed clean

    Edit:

    Due to your (member insulting) post reply (thankfully now removed)
    You have at last received your first official warning
    kimsland, Jan 8, 2009
    #28

  9. 0mega Newcomer, in training

    Holy crap... I started a flame war..

    I would like to start out by saying Thank You to -all- individuals who invested time and effort into helping me fix this mysterious ailment; I greatly appreciate the value of each of your individual experiences, and the expertise that that brings to the table. One thing I hope is that my responses, or my response times have not led -any- of you to believe that I have thought less of, or second guessed a Single one of the opinions / suggestions given to me in this lengthy thread. My lack of responding in a timely matter is largely to blame because of a new semester in college just starting, and time management has never been one of my strong suits.

    My failure to reply in a timely manner should NOT be viewed as doubt on -any- advice given to me. I sincerely hope you will believe me on that.

    One thing I will admit is that adweston's mentioning of a possible setting causing my hard-drive to fail did catch my attention; my laptop is 1.5 years old, and has already needed a hard drive replacement because of "unknown causes". When he spoke of something that could potentially be the cause for that failing, and potentially this failing, I did latch onto that idea. I say all that simply to say to Bobbye that, if any of my posts that were responsive to adweston's advice came across as doubt in you, I appologize. That was not, and is not, my intent. I greatly appreciate all the work you have done in reviewing logs, and offering well-spoken steps towards fixing my computer. Please believe me when I say that I have tried to faithfully follow each one of them to completion, and did not skip any.

    Oh, and also thank you to Kimsland; please don't view me not uninstalling Norton as a slight against you; I just have a really hard time deleting a program I've paid for x.x

    With all that said, I do have to admit that I have not -YET- followed your latest piece of advice (scanning the hard drive) but I will; and when I do, I shall report back here.

    Thanks again.. and sorry for causing such a sh.t storm...
    0mega, Jan 11, 2009
    #29

  10. kimsland Ex-TechSpotter

    Best post I've ever seen :grinthumb
    I'd say it would have taken me about 4Hrs to write that, with many drafts along the way :)

    Thanks for bearing with us through your troubled times (and ours ;) )
    This is the first time, I'll say this in about 5 or 6 years. Keep Norton then :cool:

    I've said it before that the only time I cease support, is when a user\member decides to hold on to their filesharing programs. (ie this is not in your case) Other than that, I'll help to the end.

    The last options that were suggested here were:
    Checkdisk - - howto here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/post691463-4.html
    Memtest - - howto here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/post653029-21.html
    Drive Diagnostics - - howto here: http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic7602.html
    kimsland, Jan 11, 2009
    #30

  11. adweston Banned


    Dude, don't worry about it. It really isn't that bad. The reply that was deleted was no different than his. It wasn't a flame war. He's been after me for a week now, in PMs and the board. I have it all in PMs and emails if you feel bad and would like some "consolation".

    He deleted that post, then cited me for content similar to his, gave me an infraction and banned me... Then worded his follow up like I was the devil and staff had to rush in and put out a fire or something. :D

    It REALLY isn't the big deal it was made out to be... Honest :)

    Let's get back to business and forget about it. If he doesn't censor this one too (and ban me for my honesty).

    Try the drive repair and see what happens. Check if it's a Toshiba hard drive. They're prone to failure. Acer uses them.

    I'll check in from time to time and see how you made out.

    I actually wasn't going to bother anymore, but there's a lot of sitting time while I'm waiting for this server software to install... You know, the old "Insert disk #...." routine every 60 minutes. Blah :(
    adweston, Jan 11, 2009
    #31

  12. Bobbye Helper on the Fringe

    Omega, you are NOT responsible for any differences of opinion. You did not "start" anything. And you surely do not own anyone an apology!
    Bobbye, Jan 12, 2009
    #32

  13. jobeard TechSpot Ambassador

    let's all backup a tad.

    The unstated problem here is a clear strategy to problem solving! As we have multiple contributors, we get multiple strategies -- not good.

    Tools provide two services
    1- diagnostic information
    2- some form(s) of reactions

    (2) can be misused without good analysis of (1) and that's where experience comes in.

    There's literature on Techniques of Problem Determination, and it's always iterative;
    • Form a hypothesis
    • Diagnose the data
    • verify the findings
    • reject the hypothesis, forming another and iterating to (a)
    • accepting the hypothesis and taking corrective action
      • rerunning the test or system
        • original symptom is still present and we start over
        • verify correction and no new symptoms exist
        • correction is apparently ok but a new symptom has occurred
          (like chkdsk /r fixing bad sectors but corrupting one or more files in doing so.

    Due to the volunteer nature of T.S., time passes between postings and feedback is frequently delayed -- it's just the nature of the environment.
    While it is laudable that many want to help the O.P., contrary strategies and.or approaches to diagnosing and fixing systems EASILY gets counter productive.

    This is not a simple issue for T.S. to solve.

    my $0.02 -- jobeard
    jobeard, Jan 16, 2009
    #33

  14. Bobbye Helper on the Fringe

    Nice job jobeard! Unfortunately, it is #2 Diagnose the data that is left lacking.

    And the really bad thing about this type of controversy on a thread is that we usually lose the person who asked the question! Since it has been 5 days, I can only wonder if Omega sought a more peaceful environment. elsewhere.
    Bobbye, Jan 16, 2009
    #34

  15. jobeard TechSpot Ambassador

    yes yes yes! this is the tragedy!

    Perhaps we could establish an arbitration protocol, eg:
    Some suggestion is proposed to which a contra opinion is felt necessary
    • the thread is update to note the exception
      (contrary proposal is being discussed offline by xxx) and if others are joining the debate,
      they too append (contrary proposal is being discussed offline by xxx)
    • PM is used between the two or more "helpers"
    • when the issue reaches a consensus, the original thread is updated

    IMO, this would add a great deal of "professionalism" to our comments.
    jobeard, Jan 16, 2009
    #35

  16. Julio Franco TechSpot Editor

    Thread closed - discussing went way off-topic.

    Creating special rules for the Virus & Malware removal forum as I write this.
    Thank you everyone for your participation.
    Julio Franco, Jan 18, 2009
    #36
Page 2 of 2
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.