For the real techies out there.........

I have managed to infect my PC with what seems to be the startpage virus (according to my AV software anyway). This was after downloading various mp3s from Shareaza and installing a new printer - so the potential source could be one of a few.

Anyway, not sure if this is co-incidence or not, but I am not able to boot the machine up. For most attempts at booting the BIOS is not recognising either the C: or D: drives (different physical disks). Maybe in one about 5 attempts it will recognise the disks, flash up the Windows ME startup screen and then stop on a black screen with a flashing cursor in the top left corner. I am sometimes able to start the machine in safe mode - when I do that I can see both of the hard drives in Windows. I can also run my AV software (CA EZ antivirus or whatever the name is now...) which is up to date to within a day or two and which doesn't seem to pick up any problems (after it identified two files in C;\ and one in the windows directory with startpage.

My questions are:

Could startpage do this? (my understanding is that it will change IE settings but not much else)

Do I have a boot virus? If so, how do I go about cleaning that (i.e. do I need a DOS AV program)

Any help much appreciated - my PC is completely dead just now so I am doing this from work...D'OH!

My questions are:

Could startpage do this? (my understanding is that it will change IE settings but not much else)

Do I have a boot virus? If so' date=' how do I go about cleaning that (i.e. do I need a DOS AV program)

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I'm not over familiar with startpage, but as far as I'm aware it can just corrupt Windows data, and not much else. Your BIOS settings will be stored in a chip on the motherboard, so it's unlikely for it to be infected, but it might well be possible.

When the machine boots up, can you go into the BIOS settings and then run auto-detect on the disks? And does it then find them correctly?

Rob.

That's what I thought about startpage as well.

On the occasions when the initial startup checks don't spot the disks, they don't show up when I go into the BIOS setup (even if Auto detect is selected). When the initial test sees the disks, then the BIOS sees them ok. I can't get into the BIOS settings until after the initial startup checks have been done.

I can't see any pattern to when they are or are not detected (either way I can't boot up fully!). Not sure if this helps or not.......

Cheers

Ross

Hmm...I'll admit I haven't come across anything like that!

However, if I was faced with it (as in, this is advice and might not work ), the first thing I'd try would be to re-install the operating system. So long as you don't format any of the disks as part of your installation, then any data should stay safe - applications may not work as previous though if they relied on entries in the Windows registry (just reinstall them).

If you didn't have any important data, then formatting the disks and doing a clean install would be preferable in case the virus has corrupted anything in the "FAT" (file alloction table - basically an index of stuff on the disk).

This should allow you to be able to start up in "unsafe" mode on the times where the hard disk is detected.

If this doesn't fix the BIOS problem, then try going to the motherboard manufacturers' website and downloading the BIOS flash - even if it's not a newer version, then if somehow it's been shafted then it shoud sort it out.

Unless, by some very unlucky coincidence the BIOS chip has fried at the same time as the BIOS infection. Cross that bridge if and when...

Rob.

Made some progress now......

By means of various tinkering, I have now managed to get the PC up and running again. However whenever I attach my second internal IDE HD the problems re-appear and I can't start it up......disconnect the second hard drive and it works fine....

there is nothing other than data (a backup only) on the second disk so I would happily reformat it and start again, but I can't seem to get the PC running with it on to do that....hmm - chicken and egg?

Seems odd that the problem only arose all of a sudden - unless it was just a mechanical failure......(the disk is probably at least 6 years old....)

any ideas this time?

Sounds like electronics failure on your second HD causing havoc on the IDE bus.

It's unlikely you will be able to do anything about this. Best advice is to junk it and get a new one.

Some things to try......

Make sure the jumpers on both the drives are set correctly (i.e. Master on one Slave on other, and make sure you plug them into the IDE cable in that manner, master Top slave middle)

The other thing to try is pop the second disk on the second IDE channel as a master and see what results you get there.

Also just for your info http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_100973.htm is the details of the virus / trojan

Ross, you don't say if you've a firewall running, you have a trojan horse not a virus, your AV prog can't see it.

If the second drive is causing the boot to fail get and ide to USB2 case from PCWorld. You can mount the second drive in this case, boot the computer, then install the usb converted HD whilst the OS is live. Get the fix for this trojan off someone before attaching the drive then run the fix.

Hope this helps, basically it's the cheaper option!

If it was a virus or trojan on the boot drive you would see it every time. But this problem only appears when the second drive is added to the system. The PC will not look at the boot sector on the second drive if it is booting from the first.

I'd still plump for either mechanical or electronic failure. 6 years isn't bad for a HD!

HDD failure - or even cabled / pinned wrong ?

Thanks for the info guys (and gals?). Looks like I am virus / trojan free as everything seems to be working smoothly now......although I still haven't plugged the old hd back in. Fortunately I had migrated all my data off it onto the newer drive and was only using it for backup. Sounds as if it's best set for the bin...........having seen the price of new hds it's hardly worth keeping an old 6Gb one (that was HUGE! when I got it originally - it was replacing a P60 with a 512mb HD)

Cheers