Computer Gurus...UNITE! All for One, One for All!
The best advice I can give to those of you that are pretty new with computers is: I highly suggest you read this post because it might scare you into taking better care of your computers.
I'm in some serious need of help fixing my laptop.
The other day I made a very big booboo. I kept receiving these popups on my computer while working in applications outside of the internet. I wasn't even connected to the internet at the time and I still kept receiving these damn popups.
Well, I go and check my settings and stupid me realized I had forgotten to reset my settings back to only allow first-party cookies and prompt for third party.
So I reset it, went back to work and still kept receiving these popups.
So then I run Webroot Spysweeper and it finds 144 spywares on my computer. I cannot remove them though because my subscription ran out a long while back. So I download S&D, AdAware, SpyDoctor, NoAdware, and one other program. As you probably know, AdAware is free to a certain extent, S&D is completely free, SpyDoctor and NoAdware only allow free scans but not removal. The other program was another free one but I didn't end up using it.
Results:
(1st) NoAdware found 138 spyware traces including two Trojans called Download.Trojan (a nasty lil' bugger that downloads and installs spyware without your consent)
(2nd) SpyDoctor found 143 spyware traces including two more Trojans the same as above
(3rd) AdAware found 130+ spyware traces and removed all but 9 (CmdService, New.Net, Rotue).
(4th) S&D found 140+ spyware traces and removed all but 9 (CmdService, New.Net, Rotue).
Both AdAware and S&D said that they cannot be removed while in normal mode, to enter into SafeMode, run the programs again, have them remove it, and go back into Normal Mode and remove manually.
So now I'm in SafeMode.
(1st) AdAware finds the spyware traces but once again cannot remove them.
(2nd) S&D finds the spyware same as AdAware but cannot remove them either.
(3rd) I run SpyDoctor once more and this time it finds 238+ spyware traces. Most of them were cookies (448 total cookies)...which I distinctly remember deleting from my computer...even removing completely from my recycle bin. Because SpyDoctor is not free, I decide to tackle this manually. I keep SpyDoctor's results open and proceed to my registry and my Windows folder under my C:\ drive.
I go about my business of deleting everything in the registry that SpyDoctor says is spyware. Well, I decide to take a break and head with my wife to the grocery store to do some grocery shopping. I get back home later on and notice my screen is black. So I get my computer out of standby mode only to find out that my computer will not take me back to the main screen. Instead it gets stuck on the screen where normally your login icons are located (Windows XP screen) only I never see the icons. I see the blue screen (not the Blue Screen of Death) but no icons except the Windows XP Home icon.
I've tried rebooting several different times only to find out that my computer will still not advance past this screen. I am no longer able to access my computer.
So my wife and I decide to see what we can do about recovering my files on my hard drive. We pop in the Windows XP operating disk (the one they give you when you purchase a pre-built machine) and try to do a repair. I remember when I first ran S&D, it asked me if I want to save a copy of how my system looked right then before I ran the program and I chose the "yes" option knowing that if I messed up, I could always go back and restore my computer back to the most recent working condition. Well, now that I cannot get into my computer, I cannot do a system restore.
So we try to do the "Repair" option when we booted from the CD by pressing the "R" key at the appropriate time. Well, needless to say, my wife and I have never seen the "repair" take you to the command prompt service. The only other time I've ever done a repair, it was with my first computer I ever built. During that repair, the computer scanned itself for missing or corrupted files and registry items and it would ask you if you want to copy the files from the CD to the correct location on my hard drive. Well, not this time. We were being prompted using command prompt.
Now, I'm not too shabby when it comes to maneuvering my way around on my computer using command prompt but I started receiving odd messages. I am the only user on this computer. I would be prompted to enter which Windows would I like to login to and I would respond with the only option I had (C:\Windows). It would then ask for my administrator password. Well, I've never set that on my computer so I would just hit enter and I'd be logged into C:\Windows.
I would then change my directory to just the C:\ and do a dir "documents and settings" and I could see the directory "documents and settings". However, when I would try to change my directory to "documents and settings" I kept receiving a "Access Denied" reponse. How is it that my "documents and settings" folder is denying the administrator access into that directory? I could view every subfolder within the "documents and settings" directory but I could not access them to copy them to a disk. I have every bit of my school work, business work, documents, PSD files, images, etc. all on that hard drive yet I could not access them.
I tried to access the programs directory but received the same error (I was just testing at that time to see if I could access it). I need nothing in programs directory but I need everything in "My Documents" subdirectory.
So my question for all of you out there is this:
What can I do to gain access to "documents and settings" as the administrator.
Can I take my hard drive out of my laptop, hook it up to our PC and access the folders on that hard drive?
All of this is my fault for not being careful with my computer. I failed to make sure my computer was secure, safe from spyware (I had also forgotten to turn on the integrated "IE Popup Blocker" provided with SP 2.0), and safe from Virus'. I am never on my computer long enough to run my Norton Anti-Virus so I am afraid that I royally screwed up my laptop for good until I do a complete reformat of my computer which would cause me to lose every bit of work I have ever done...which I have spent countless hours upon hours working on.
I'm in some serious need of help fixing my laptop.
The other day I made a very big booboo. I kept receiving these popups on my computer while working in applications outside of the internet. I wasn't even connected to the internet at the time and I still kept receiving these damn popups.
Well, I go and check my settings and stupid me realized I had forgotten to reset my settings back to only allow first-party cookies and prompt for third party.
So I reset it, went back to work and still kept receiving these popups.
So then I run Webroot Spysweeper and it finds 144 spywares on my computer. I cannot remove them though because my subscription ran out a long while back. So I download S&D, AdAware, SpyDoctor, NoAdware, and one other program. As you probably know, AdAware is free to a certain extent, S&D is completely free, SpyDoctor and NoAdware only allow free scans but not removal. The other program was another free one but I didn't end up using it.
Results:
(1st) NoAdware found 138 spyware traces including two Trojans called Download.Trojan (a nasty lil' bugger that downloads and installs spyware without your consent)
(2nd) SpyDoctor found 143 spyware traces including two more Trojans the same as above
(3rd) AdAware found 130+ spyware traces and removed all but 9 (CmdService, New.Net, Rotue).
(4th) S&D found 140+ spyware traces and removed all but 9 (CmdService, New.Net, Rotue).
Both AdAware and S&D said that they cannot be removed while in normal mode, to enter into SafeMode, run the programs again, have them remove it, and go back into Normal Mode and remove manually.
So now I'm in SafeMode.
(1st) AdAware finds the spyware traces but once again cannot remove them.
(2nd) S&D finds the spyware same as AdAware but cannot remove them either.
(3rd) I run SpyDoctor once more and this time it finds 238+ spyware traces. Most of them were cookies (448 total cookies)...which I distinctly remember deleting from my computer...even removing completely from my recycle bin. Because SpyDoctor is not free, I decide to tackle this manually. I keep SpyDoctor's results open and proceed to my registry and my Windows folder under my C:\ drive.
I go about my business of deleting everything in the registry that SpyDoctor says is spyware. Well, I decide to take a break and head with my wife to the grocery store to do some grocery shopping. I get back home later on and notice my screen is black. So I get my computer out of standby mode only to find out that my computer will not take me back to the main screen. Instead it gets stuck on the screen where normally your login icons are located (Windows XP screen) only I never see the icons. I see the blue screen (not the Blue Screen of Death) but no icons except the Windows XP Home icon.
I've tried rebooting several different times only to find out that my computer will still not advance past this screen. I am no longer able to access my computer.
So my wife and I decide to see what we can do about recovering my files on my hard drive. We pop in the Windows XP operating disk (the one they give you when you purchase a pre-built machine) and try to do a repair. I remember when I first ran S&D, it asked me if I want to save a copy of how my system looked right then before I ran the program and I chose the "yes" option knowing that if I messed up, I could always go back and restore my computer back to the most recent working condition. Well, now that I cannot get into my computer, I cannot do a system restore.
So we try to do the "Repair" option when we booted from the CD by pressing the "R" key at the appropriate time. Well, needless to say, my wife and I have never seen the "repair" take you to the command prompt service. The only other time I've ever done a repair, it was with my first computer I ever built. During that repair, the computer scanned itself for missing or corrupted files and registry items and it would ask you if you want to copy the files from the CD to the correct location on my hard drive. Well, not this time. We were being prompted using command prompt.
Now, I'm not too shabby when it comes to maneuvering my way around on my computer using command prompt but I started receiving odd messages. I am the only user on this computer. I would be prompted to enter which Windows would I like to login to and I would respond with the only option I had (C:\Windows). It would then ask for my administrator password. Well, I've never set that on my computer so I would just hit enter and I'd be logged into C:\Windows.
I would then change my directory to just the C:\ and do a dir "documents and settings" and I could see the directory "documents and settings". However, when I would try to change my directory to "documents and settings" I kept receiving a "Access Denied" reponse. How is it that my "documents and settings" folder is denying the administrator access into that directory? I could view every subfolder within the "documents and settings" directory but I could not access them to copy them to a disk. I have every bit of my school work, business work, documents, PSD files, images, etc. all on that hard drive yet I could not access them.
I tried to access the programs directory but received the same error (I was just testing at that time to see if I could access it). I need nothing in programs directory but I need everything in "My Documents" subdirectory.
So my question for all of you out there is this:
What can I do to gain access to "documents and settings" as the administrator.
Can I take my hard drive out of my laptop, hook it up to our PC and access the folders on that hard drive?
All of this is my fault for not being careful with my computer. I failed to make sure my computer was secure, safe from spyware (I had also forgotten to turn on the integrated "IE Popup Blocker" provided with SP 2.0), and safe from Virus'. I am never on my computer long enough to run my Norton Anti-Virus so I am afraid that I royally screwed up my laptop for good until I do a complete reformat of my computer which would cause me to lose every bit of work I have ever done...which I have spent countless hours upon hours working on.
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