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Problems using explorer, mail, msn...

Discussion in 'Malware and Virus Removal Archive' started by pop, 2006/08/03.

  1. 2006/08/03
    pop

    pop Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hello,

    I have been having problems with my PC (running Windows 98) since yesterday, particularly when connecting to the internet (with IE 6, SP1) is concerned. I fear i have a virus although a full scan with Norton (updated last night) shows up nothing at all.

    Last night I was trying to connect to a web page, but the page crashed and flashed up the Microsoft dialog box 'send/don't send error report', then proceeded to continuously reopen my home page with the same dialog box showing every time until i shut down explorer.

    Today, it is having trouble getting to web pages, it will only go as far as my home page (BBC) or Google but it does not get any further than that.

    When attempting to connect to Outlook the program loads, shows that new messages have been received but will not let you look at them, it crashes almost immediately.

    As for MSN messenger, i am able to log in but then the MSN today page will not load.

    In addition, yesterday the internet problems were preceded by half a dozen disk write errors. I have also noticed a few other random problems, such as the screen saver crashing and then not all screen savers being available.

    Unfortunately i have not been able to carry out an online virus scan as i cannot connect to the appropriate web page!

    Any help or ideas would be much appreciated!

    Thank you.
     
    pop,
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  2. 2006/08/03
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    pop - Welcome to the Board :)

    A number of possible causes here - I guess you are on another computer to post here and cannot access the Internet on the problem PC to download anything. We can work round that if the PC you are on has a CD burner or pendrive.
    and could indicate a problem with your hard drive.

    First step is to run scandisk - I'm working from memory here, but will check on a 98 box I have lying around ....

    Start > Run > type in scandisk > OK. In the dialogue box which appears select your hard drive and select Thorough and select Automatically fix errors > Start

    When the scan has finished post the log or brief details of any problems found.

    Then go to Add/Remove Programs > Microsoft Internet Explorer .... highlight it and click on Add/Remove. In the dialogue box which opens select Repair Internet Explorer > OK

    Post back with a status update on the computer performance.
     
    PeteC,
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  4. 2006/08/03
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    pop Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi Pete

    Thanks very much for offering your assistance. I am indeed using another PC (my wife's laptop) to talk to you. It isn't possible to get very far at all on the broken one (more on this further down).

    I did run scandisk yesterday after getting the disk write errors - in thorough mode as you suggest. It gave C: a clean bill of health. This is what made me think that I might be suffering from a virus which displays bogus messages of this kind.

    I have just tried to repair Internet Explorer. It didn't say whether or not it actually did anything but there has been no change in the symptoms.

    Here's a little more info on the nature of the IE problem. I can launch IE and it will bring up my home page - bbc.co.uk. Then I find I can get to quite a lot of that website (eg weather, radio, Business & Money, News items and Sports items) but if (from the home page) I click on Children or TV, for example, I get a hang. When I CTRL,ALT,DEL I can see IE is not responding. I can End Task, then I either get a "IE has encountered a problem and needs to close..." message box or an "Illegal Instruction" box (page fault). I can exit either box OK to get back to where I was before launching IE.

    More on the screen saver angle. It is the 3D screen savers that have stopped working. Selecting any of them (there are 5 - maybe all in one exe) immediately produces "This program has performed an illegal operation ... ". Does this point to disk corruption? If so why didn't scandisk discover any problems? Do you think I should run it again - takes quite a while!

    Thanks once again for helping.
     
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  5. 2006/08/03
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    OK - we can check for baddies on your computer, but I don't think - at the moment that that is the cause. So, on your wife's laptop - these are my standard responses, workaround below ....

    Please download HijackThis through Quicklinks in my signature and save it to a folder on your hard drive, say C:\HJT - not to the Desktop or a temporary location. When entries are fixed with HJT a backup is made to the folder from which HJT is run and this must be in a permanent location.

    Open the folder in which you placed HJT and double click on hijackthis.exe and select Scan and save a log file - this will be saved in the folder from which you ran HJT.

    Reboot into Normal mode and post the log here.

    In your case download to your wife's laptop, copy to floppy, CD or pen drive - whatever suits the sick computer. Then copy hijackthis.exe to a folder, as above, on the sick computer, run it, copy the log file to a suitable medium and transfer it to your wife's laptop and post the contents here.
     
    PeteC,
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  6. 2006/08/03
    pop

    pop Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thank you again for your reply.

    Have just run HijackThis which i transferred using a USB key. Here are the results:

    Logfile of HijackThis v1.99.1
    Scan saved at 19:45:01, on 03/08/06
    Platform: Windows 98 SE (Win9x 4.10.2222A)
    MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP1 (6.00.2800.1106)

    Running processes:
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\KERNEL32.DLL
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSGSRV32.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MPREXE.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSTASK.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\NORTON ANTIVIRUS\RTVSCN95.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\NORTON ANTIVIRUS\DEFWATCH.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\mmtask.tsk
    C:\WINDOWS\EXPLORER.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\TASKMON.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SYSTRAY.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\MOUSEWARE\SYSTEM\EM_EXEC.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\BROADJUMP\CLIENT FOUNDATION\CFD.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\LOADQM.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\MSN APPS\UPDATER\01.03.0000.1005\EN-GB\MSNAPPAU.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\COMMON FILES\REAL\UPDATE_OB\REALSCHED.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\HPZTSB05.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\NORTON ANTIVIRUS\VPTRAY.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\SPOOL32.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT HOME PUBLISHING\MHPRMIND.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\WMIEXE.EXE
    C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\FINDFAST.EXE
    C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\DDHELP.EXE
    C:\HJT\HIJACKTHIS.EXE

    R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar = http://g.msn.co.uk/0SEENGB/SAOS01
    R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://www.bbc.co.uk/
    O2 - BHO: MSNToolBandBHO - {BDBD1DAD-C946-4A17-ADC1-64B5B4FF55D0} - C:\PROGRAM FILES\MSN APPS\MSN TOOLBAR\01.02.5000.1021\EN-GB\MSNTB.DLL
    O2 - BHO: ST - {9394EDE7-C8B5-483E-8773-474BF36AF6E4} - C:\PROGRAM FILES\MSN APPS\ST\01.03.0000.1005\EN-XU\STMAIN.DLL
    O2 - BHO: AcroIEHlprObj Class - {06849E9F-C8D7-4D59-B87D-784B7D6BE0B3} - C:\PROGRAM FILES\ADOBE\ACROBAT 6.0\READER\ACTIVEX\ACROIEHELPER.DLL
    O3 - Toolbar: &Radio - {8E718888-423F-11D2-876E-00A0C9082467} - C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\MSDXM.OCX
    O3 - Toolbar: MSN - {BDAD1DAD-C946-4A17-ADC1-64B5B4FF55D0} - C:\PROGRAM FILES\MSN APPS\MSN TOOLBAR\01.02.5000.1021\EN-GB\MSNTB.DLL
    O3 - Toolbar: Yahoo! Toolbar - {EF99BD32-C1FB-11D2-892F-0090271D4F88} - C:\PROGRAM FILES\YAHOO!\COMPANION\INSTALLS\CPN\YT.DLL
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [ScanRegistry] c:\windows\scanregw.exe /autorun
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TaskMonitor] c:\windows\taskmon.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [SystemTray] SysTray.Exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [LoadPowerProfile] Rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,LoadCurrentPwrScheme
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [EM_EXEC] C:\PROGRA~1\MOUSEW~1\SYSTEM\EM_EXEC.EXE
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [BJCFD] C:\Program Files\BroadJump\Client Foundation\CFD.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [LoadQM] loadqm.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [msnappau] "c:\program files\MSN Apps\Updater\01.03.0000.1005\en-gb\msnappau.exe "
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [TkBellExe] "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Real\Update_OB\realsched.exe" -osboot
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [HPDJ Taskbar Utility] C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\hpztsb05.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [vptray] c:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\vptray.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\RunServices: [LoadPowerProfile] Rundll32.exe powrprof.dll,LoadCurrentPwrScheme
    O4 - HKLM\..\RunServices: [SchedulingAgent] mstask.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\RunServices: [rtvscn95] c:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\rtvscn95.exe
    O4 - HKLM\..\RunServices: [defwatch] c:\Program Files\Norton AntiVirus\defwatch.exe
    O4 - HKCU\..\Run: [MsnMsgr] "c:\Program Files\MSN Messenger\MsnMsgr.Exe" /background
    O4 - Startup: Microsoft Office.lnk = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\OSA9.EXE
    O4 - Startup: Microsoft Greetings Reminders.lnk = C:\Program Files\Microsoft Home Publishing\MHPRMIND.EXE
    O9 - Extra button: Related - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINDOWS\web\related.htm
    O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Show &Related Links - {c95fe080-8f5d-11d2-a20b-00aa003c157a} - C:\WINDOWS\web\related.htm
    O16 - DPF: {56336BCB-3D8A-11D6-A00B-0050DA18DE71} (RdxIE Class) - http://software-dl.real.com/0729a5739d4af7490205/netzip/RdxIE601.cab
    O16 - DPF: {17492023-C23A-453E-A040-C7C580BBF700} (Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool) - http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=39204
    O16 - DPF: ADVFN 4v4 - http://www.advfn.com/p.php?pid=loadercab
    O16 - DPF: {4C39376E-FA9D-4349-BACC-D305C1750EF3} (EPUImageControl Class) - http://tools.ebayimg.com/eps/wl/activex/eBay_Enhanced_Picture_Control_v1-0-3-48.cab

    Thanks hope it means something to you.
     
    pop,
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  7. 2006/08/03
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Oh yes :) It tells me that your computer is not infected, although we may do a further check for items which HJT does not indicate later.

    For the moment - did you install the Yahoo Toolbar recently? - this is known to give problems with XP based systems.

    Please clear out your Temporary Internet files and try to connect to the Internet again and see how far you get.
     
    PeteC,
    #6
  8. 2006/08/03
    pop

    pop Inactive Thread Starter

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    Ok I have deleted all Temporary Internet files and have also uninstalled the Yahoo! toolbar which i found on the list of program files.

    I then tried the internet again and sadly i have exactly the same problems as before, i.e. i can access the BBC page but only certain parts of it as i described to you previously.

    Unfortunately otherwise things appear to be getting worse there have been two more disk write errors, a crash of some sort when the screen blacked out, and then a hang when I tried to shutdown in order to reboot the PC.

    On the restart the boot code has decided to run Scandisk in thorough mode, which entails a surface scan of Drive C which i think is going to take about an hour or so. So far it has found no bad clusters.

    I will let you know what the result is when it has finished.

    Thank you once more for your time and help.
     
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  9. 2006/08/03
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    pop Inactive Thread Starter

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    Scandisk has finished. It found 1 bad cluster containing an Outlook file. Yesterday it did not find any bad clusters. Maybe the disk is starting to misbehave. Could it be that it is mis-writing and corrupting files?

    The symptoms haven't changed. Further investigation of bbc.co.uk reveals that "Children ", "Entertainment" and "Science & Nature" are the sections down the left hand side that cannot be accessed. However, if I switch to "text only" then I can access these sections. So is it having trouble handling some HTML constructs I wonder.

    Any further suggestions gratefully received.
     
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