Solve : Can a Virus Freeze a Hard Drive??

1.	Solve : Can a Virus Freeze a Hard Drive??
Answer» Yesterday I was browsing the web, reading the forums at Notebookreview.com. My Avast! anti-virus reported two pages (two separate threads) as having Malware on them which it said it had successfully blocked. I continued using my computer for many hours until I went to sleep and left the machine alone. At 7am I awoke and found that the laptop's clock was stuck at 3am. I could still move the cursor but no program would respond so I was forced to physically turn it off without Windows XP's help. I have not since managed to re-boot to the Desktop. The PC wants to run CHKDSK but is getting stuck. It ONCE gave me the OPTION to try to start in Safe Mode - but I don't know how to get to that menu screen again. The device is a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 with ThinkVantage. Pressing the ThinkVantage button let me run a diagnostics procedure that did not report any HARDWARE errors. My CHKDSK says : "CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)..." I think it got to 9% before it displayed : "File record segment 56308 in unreadable." It has remained like that for over half an hour. I would like to be able to verify whether I have a virus problem or a hardware one. I have never reinstalled an operating system from a hard drive partition instead of an optical disc and don't understand how if the hard drive the Recovery OS is on is damaged that "Recovery" could work. Please advise.If the Hard drive has a physical error, the factory recovery procedure is futile. It will get stuck on the physical flaws. You will need a working Desktop computer to help you recover data from the laptop drive. You remove the drive from the laptop and slave it to a Desktop and recover the data. Video from YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsyBrjqPAmo From CNET Q&A forum: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive? It is unlikely that a virus caused this.Thank you for putting my mind at rest about the virus. I seem to spend a lot of my time GUESSING about cause and effect and my computers' behaviour. The hard drive I had must be nearly five years old, and although I think I had no warning about the onset of this complete freeze - the laptop had manifested brief "stops" for months - which were, perhaps, indicators of trouble brewing that I was not on the ball enough to recognise. I always imagined that these pauses were "just" my computer struggling with a lack of RAM or getting tired after a long period of having many, many Firefox Tabs open. I guess I guessed wrong.Quote spend a lot of my time GUESSING about cause and effect and my computers' behavior. You go it! I used to write low-level code, including boot-loaders. That was a long time ago, but the fundamentals are still there. When there is a hardware failure you do not get a written report from a boot-loader. A low-level program gets locked in an endless loop waiting for the hardware to give a valid RESPONSE. In modern PCs the fist loader is still very primitive and has low tolerance of a crude hard drive error. The field test is to remove the drive completely and see what happens on the next power-up. That is so simple, there is little reason to make the first loader more sophisticated. If you replace the bad drive with good drive that does not have an OS, you will get a MEANINGFUL error message from the first loader. Something like: "missing operating system" , which means the drive is physically readable, but does not have useful information for the loader. Hard drives can fail at any time with no warning. Of course, the drive makers have tried to make drives that conform to user's expectations, But there exists four options in a competitive market: 1. Make it the low-cost wonder. 2. Make it extra large. 3. Give it high performance and long life. 4. Let it be so user friendly. Some drive makers can hit three out of four, never more. You could try running a diagnostic on the drive. Run hard drive diagnostics: tacktech.com Make sure, you SELECT tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive. Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD. If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: imgburn to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable. For Toshiba hard drives, see here: Note : If you do not know how to set your computer to boot from CD follow the steps here

Answer»

Yesterday I was browsing the web, reading the forums at Notebookreview.com. My Avast! anti-virus reported two pages (two separate threads) as having Malware on them which it said it had successfully blocked.

I continued using my computer for many hours until I went to sleep and left the machine alone.

At 7am I awoke and found that the laptop's clock was stuck at 3am.

I could still move the cursor but no program would respond so I was forced to physically turn it off without Windows XP's help.

I have not since managed to re-boot to the Desktop.

The PC wants to run CHKDSK but is getting stuck.

It ONCE gave me the OPTION to try to start in Safe Mode - but I don't know how to get to that menu screen again.

The device is a Lenovo ThinkPad T61 with ThinkVantage. Pressing the ThinkVantage button let me run a diagnostics procedure that did not report any HARDWARE errors.

My CHKDSK says : "CHKDSK is verifying files (stage 1 of 3)..."

I think it got to 9% before it displayed : "File record segment 56308 in unreadable."

It has remained like that for over half an hour.

I would like to be able to verify whether I have a virus problem or a hardware one.

I have never reinstalled an operating system from a hard drive partition instead of an optical disc and don't understand how if the hard drive the Recovery OS is on is damaged that "Recovery" could work.

Please advise.If the Hard drive has a physical error, the factory recovery procedure is futile. It will get stuck on the physical flaws.
You will need a working Desktop computer to help you recover data from the laptop drive. You remove the drive from the laptop and slave it to a Desktop and recover the data.
Video from YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsyBrjqPAmo
From CNET
Q&A forum: Ways to recover data from a corrupt hard drive?

It is unlikely that a virus caused this.Thank you for putting my mind at rest about the virus. I seem to spend a lot of my time GUESSING about cause and effect and my computers' behaviour.

The hard drive I had must be nearly five years old, and although I think I had no warning about the onset of this complete freeze - the laptop had manifested brief "stops" for months - which were, perhaps, indicators of trouble brewing that I was not on the ball enough to recognise.

I always imagined that these pauses were "just" my computer struggling with a lack of RAM or getting tired after a long period of having many, many Firefox Tabs open.

I guess I guessed wrong.Quote

spend a lot of my time GUESSING about cause and effect and my computers' behavior.

You go it!
I used to write low-level code, including boot-loaders. That was a long time ago, but the fundamentals are still there. When there is a hardware failure you do not get a written report from a boot-loader. A low-level program gets locked in an endless loop waiting for the hardware to give a valid RESPONSE. In modern PCs the fist loader is still very primitive and has low tolerance of a crude hard drive error.

The field test is to remove the drive completely and see what happens on the next power-up. That is so simple, there is little reason to make the first loader more sophisticated.

If you replace the bad drive with good drive that does not have an OS, you will get a MEANINGFUL error message from the first loader. Something like: "missing operating system" , which means the drive is physically readable, but does not have useful information for the loader.

Hard drives can fail at any time with no warning. Of course, the drive makers have tried to make drives that conform to user's expectations, But there exists four options in a competitive market:
1. Make it the low-cost wonder.
2. Make it extra large.
3. Give it high performance and long life.
4. Let it be so user friendly.
Some drive makers can hit three out of four, never more.
You could try running a diagnostic on the drive.

Run hard drive diagnostics: tacktech.com
Make sure, you SELECT tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: imgburn to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.
For Toshiba hard drives, see here:

Note : If you do not know how to set your computer to boot from CD follow the steps here

Solve : Can a Virus Freeze a Hard Drive??

Discussion

No Comment Found

Related InterviewSolutions

Reply to Comment