Stating XPpro

[D.Arbib]

I have an interesting story. In the course of testing software I have had to re-install XPpro/SP2 with IE7 several times.

I normally did this ny reformatting in full the drive & doing full re-installation. But I found that some software did not behave properly and occasionally XP would start up then half way through the start process the computer would quickly shutdown.

I used such as debug, last known good configuration, and safe mode and I couldn't resolve the problem.

In the back of my mind was a comment that a re-format might leave residual bits on the drive might corrupt some part of the installation.

So I used an eraser program (MicroScope Eraser Disk) to wipe my drive completely with a triple scan which took 4 hours to do!

I reformatted and re-installed XPpro/SP2 and 45 programs and now have no problems whatsoever.

Has anyone had similar problems?

 

[Osiris]

not at all, just a fluke

 

[EricB]

you probably had a boot sector virus. that why I use powermax quick erase to wipe my drives before I install xp

 

[b0dge]

Heh, A friends laptop had a boot sector virus. I had that thing in my house for about four weeks before i finally wiped the HDD completely (after about twenty XP installs!).

I wish I was a member here then!!

 

[D.Arbib]

Boot virus? Well, possibly, but

1. Don't a/v programs catch such viruses?
2. Souldn't a reformat destroy the virus?

I am still of the opinion that re-formatting leaves some junk on the drive which can cause very odd corruption of some but not all programs. Indeed I have been told there are programs that can extract information from formatted drives.

 

[EricB]

Boot virus? Well, possibly, but

1. Don't a/v programs catch such viruses?
2. Souldn't a reformat destroy the virus?

I am still of the opinion that re-formatting leaves some junk on the drive which can cause very odd corruption of some but not all programs. Indeed I have been told there are programs that can extract information from formatted drives.

1. not necessarily
2.no.

it resides in the one part of the hdd that isn't formatted. the 7.8 mb part which contain the boot sector and the partition table. window's tools don't touch this part (fix mbr does) so reinstalling windows will never fix it, but powermax will shred the data on the first 300mb and the last last 100mb of every hdd while quick erasing the rest of it with it's quick erase feature.

I've fix many of computers with your exact problem with powermax.

 

[LA1]

You ought to install windows , drivers etc , then make an image onto a cd or dvd, much much easier to reinstall. or do the above and install the programs too and make an image onto a dvd or multiple DVD's.

Sounds like you had "winfixer" on your pc. Nasty program , I had a customers pc that was infected qwith this it would post and start to boot , till it started to read the system files then the pc would shut down just like the plug was pulled.

 

[D.Arbib]

Thanks,

Don't have winfixer. Don't quite uderstand "fix mbr" mentioned above.

I still can't get clarification of what is left on a drive after a full reformat. I have asked Microsoft directly for comment,

 

[EricB]

see the blank part of the hard drives? this is the partition table and boot sector (or mbr). notice how it doesn't have anything to do with the partitioned part, so deleting the partition does nothing to it. ms intentionally did that

 

[D.Arbib]

So if mbr is corrupted by a virus, are you saying it cannot be deleted or just that in a reformat it is not deleted?