Prev: how can I remove Trojan.Generic.IS.559211
Next: swp2009 demo hit my computer tonight
From: David H. Lipman on 7 Nov 2009 12:37
From: "OldandInTheWay" <OldandInTheWay.41ajvb(a)DoNotSpam.com>

| Thanks, but at my age nothing much gets me upset when it comes to computers. I started
| programming an IBM 11/30 using FORTRAN in 1972. At heart at I'm "child of DEC" (PDP-11,
| VAX, Alpha) with an M.S. in Applied Mathematics. My real career was in electronic
| instrument design, where I wrote lots of real-time assembler code for micro-controllers
| in addition to designing the hardware itself. I taught C++ programming at the
| University of Maryland for a few years as well in the past decade.
| I'm just a "back in the day" type windbag now. ;-)

< snip >

| John -- OldandInTheWay

But not capable of accessing Usenet directly but uses the POS frint end,
forums.techarena.in

You'd think someone doing FORTRAN in '72 and teaching "C++" would know how to do it right.

--
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
Multi-AV - http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp


From: Andy Medina on 7 Nov 2009 13:22
I'm in the same boat as you John. BS in EE in '75. :D Cut my teeth on the
PDP-11.
My message was not meant as an insult to you. Just a reminder that fdisk
(wipe out
partitions) does not touch the MBR. That's why tools like fixmbr and fixboot
exist.
But I'm sure you already knew that, just had a CRS moment. :D

Try ccleaner (listed under Tools/Uninstall) to see if there is a corrupted
entry in the
Add/Remove programs entries. You maybe able to delete it, if there is one
and ccleaner
can read the rest of the entries. Might be worth a try. Also Spybot Search
and Destroy
can list Add/Remove program entries and you might be able to see what gives.
Of course
going into the registry is another choice. Can't remember [a CRS moment
myself :D ] where
in the registry the list is kept at the moment though.

As for the page file being on another disk, be sure that disc is not on the
same
cable as the OS disk if using PATA. Data on the PATA cable can only be from
one
of the disks at a time. With SATA there is only one drive per SATA cable, so
data
can be read or written to several disks at the same time (theoretically). A
raid array
would change what I just said though.

"OldandInTheWay" <OldandInTheWay.41ajvb(a)DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:OldandInTheWay.41ajvb(a)DoNotSpam.com...
>
> Thanks, but at my age nothing much gets me upset when it comes to
> computers. I started programming an IBM 11/30 using FORTRAN in 1972. At
> heart at I'm "child of DEC" (PDP-11, VAX, Alpha) with an M.S. in Applied
> Mathematics. My real career was in electronic instrument design, where I
> wrote lots of real-time assembler code for micro-controllers in addition
> to designing the hardware itself. I taught C++ programming at the
> University of Maryland for a few years as well in the past decade.
> I'm just a "back in the day" type windbag now. ;-)
>
> Thanks for the reminder about the MBR. I've had to save disks with
> corrupted MBR's before and that's a "yawn job" for me to do. I guess I
> was lucky and in this case the MBR was still pristine. I'd think that
> repartitioning would have to caused the MBR to be rewritten for the
> bootstrap loader to be able to find the new partition, but I may be
> wrong.
>
> At this point I have "rebulit" my secondary system disk (I spin 4
> drives: two bootable systems and two for data storage in a RAID 1 array.
> The primary system drive and the data can be physically disconnected to
> prevent any contagion although I'm beginning to think I may have screwed
> up enough stuff that even the malware can't run anymore! (The system is
> booting and I'm stripping it down to see what happens)
>
> If you guys care to gab, I'd love to know more about the side-effects
> of locating pagefiles on another drive, and how do I fix "Add/Remove
> Programs" which doesn't allow in the way of functionality anymore for
> removing old software.
>
> If I could extract my Microsoft Office 2000 CD-key I'd really be
> thrilled. That seems to have been made wholly unavailable by the last
> Security Update and every key finder I've tried can't cough up what I
> need.
>
> John
>
>
> --
> OldandInTheWay
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> OldandInTheWay's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/152152.htm
> View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/security-virus/1259354.htm
>
> http://forums.techarena.in
>

From: "FromTheRafters" erratic on 7 Nov 2009 17:10
"OldandInTheWay" <OldandInTheWay.41ajvb(a)DoNotSpam.com> wrote in message
news:OldandInTheWay.41ajvb(a)DoNotSpam.com...
>
> Thanks, but at my age nothing much gets me upset when it comes to
> computers.

I certainly wasn't trying to upset anyone. I just thought it unlikely
that the MBR was involved since the hiding would have been more complete
if the kernel were patched (my "oneupsmanship" humor went almost
unnoticed it seems)

> I started programming an IBM 11/30 using FORTRAN in 1972.

GE 635 (IIRC) Secondary School Network, Dartmouth Time Sharing System
for me - mostly Dartmouth BASIC 8th and 9th Edition but some FORTRAN IV,
ALGOL(60?), and COBOL thrown in.

I'm surprised to find someone else who has been computering (or
networking) since '72.

> At heart at I'm "child of DEC" (PDP-11, VAX, Alpha) with an
> M.S. in Applied Mathematics. My real career was in electronic
> instrument design, where I wrote lots of real-time assembler
> code for micro-controllers in addition to designing the hardware
> itself. I taught C++ programming at the University of Maryland
> for a few years as well in the past decade. I'm just a "back in
> the day" type windbag now. ;-)

Back in the day, I was just a highschool student skipping classes so I
could spend time computering. If I wasn't where I was supposed to be,
they knew right where to find me.

> Thanks for the reminder about the MBR. I've had to save disks with
> corrupted MBR's before and that's a "yawn job" for me to do. I guess I
> was lucky and in this case the MBR was still pristine. I'd think that
> repartitioning would have to caused the MBR to be rewritten for the
> bootstrap loader to be able to find the new partition, but I may be
> wrong.

If the MBR has a valid signature, it is left alone.

[...]


From: OldandInTheWay on 8 Nov 2009 17:01

Thank you all for the responses!
What a treat to find after being disconnected from the Internet.
I've been off in "system repair land" for a couple of days,
but now I am back.

I have an occasionally-sporadic and rather-varied background:
I didn't spend all my time in one place or just doing one thing.
A Jack of All Trades is never a Master of any, so I still fumble
around.
I retired a decade ago after a massive heart attack that left me
disabled.

Besides, I'm a hardware guy at heart: I only did software because my
hardware designs won't run without it, and who better to write it than
me?
Computer Science was my minor in both college and grad school.

Software is still fun to play with, though.

*********************************************************

@Geoff: I have the Office 2000 Product ID,
but that's 5 characters short of a Product-key in length.
I tried putting it in as the CD-key and it was rejected as invalid.
Microsoft was nice enough to assign me a unique OEM ID for my machine
and a new XP security key, but they said they're "out of Office 2000
keys"
when I called last week. Since they're sinking the remains of Windows
2000
this year I'd expect they'd abandon Office 2000 as well.
Time moves - on even if I don't. Good suggestion!

*********************************************************

Whatever I did, it seems to have cured what was ailing my
primary system disk, and I've reset it's pagefile to "none" for now.
I've got a "gratus" matched-pair of Seagate 120GB drives coming
my way that I wasn't expecting, so I guess I'll have to think up
some new arrangement - without overloading the power supply.
(HEAT is the one true enemy!)

The issue regarding my "dual-boot" systems and "criss-crossing" their
respective pagefiles seems in retrospect to have been clever at the
time
but probably not a good idea after the dust had settled.
I think now that it causes the other volume to be mounted as a system
device, due to the presence of the pagefile, which would also reveal
that
I do have two separate installations of XP. That's my idea of a
"catastrophe strategy" and it did work this time for me.

As for USENET, I never had much use for it "back in the day".
Just keeping a 5-node Local Area Vaxcluster running 24/7 with 200 users
took up enough of my time, and Digital was always there to help (we got
premier treatment). VMS, like FORTRAN, is forever. I miss DEC a lot.

The rest of the time I spent designing and building research
instrumentation for monitoring vibrations in large-span suspension
bridges: like Tacoma Narrows and the Sunshine Skyway.
Tacoma Narrows is an eerie place.

I learned C++ by teaching it, and with the department chairman's
knowledge.
That was after the heart attack when all I could do was stand around
and talk and scribble with chalk. Since I had cut my teeth on VAX-Pascal
while
teaching intermediate programming one summer during grad school in the
mid-80's (Kathleen Jensen, of Jensen & Wirth, was DEC's VP for
programming languages back then, as I recall) the chairman said it said
it would be easy
for me to pick up C++ "on the fly" and he was right: it was easy.

I even exchanged some e-mail with Bjarne Stroustrup up at ATT in NJ
after I
found a mistake in one his better-known papers on object-oriented
programming principles. He graciously admitted that I was right,
but he never got around to fixing it!

My real passions are for differential equations and combinatorics.
Anybody up for some? :-)

John
- older, a bit wiser, and still in the way ...


--
OldandInTheWay
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OldandInTheWay's Profile: http://forums.techarena.in/members/152152.htm
View this thread: http://forums.techarena.in/security-virus/1259354.htm

http://forums.techarena.in

First  |  Prev  | 
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5
Prev: how can I remove Trojan.Generic.IS.559211
Next: swp2009 demo hit my computer tonight