Computer froze - on hard restart had major errors

[kpetursson]

I don't remember all of the error that poped up when the computer restarted (I can get them tonight I they would really help)

This is the second time this has happened to me, last time (2 weeks ago) I wiped the HD and reloaded windows 98.

I was in the process of downloading files via Bit torrent using Shareaza when the computer froze. It would not respond to mouse or keyboard input (not even ctrl+alt+del)

I killed the power to it and restarted. Upon restart I recived some dll error (tried to fix it last time, but that just led to other dll errors, and other, and eventually replacing the dll did not solve the error)
This time after the desktop appears I get several msdos windows open that appear to be tring to load KB##### stuff (windows update stuff I think) but they report an error of insuffficient memory.

I am currently running a memory test, but do not think it will turn up any errors.

The programs that were runnign at the time of the crash have had all of their associate file and folder names altered to seemingly random characters, with brackets, the squared and cubed, squigles, and lines, and faces. Windows will not let me rename them.

I'm really hoping to find a solution that does not involve reloading windows completely, and I would really like to recover the partially downloaded files.

You help is greatly appriciated!

Kevin Petursson
--
"Everyone says quotable things everyday, but their not famous... so nobody cares."... Some Person

 

[jimp56]

I hate to say this, but to me (just a guess) - I think you were hacked both times. 98 is very easy to hack, and sharing sites are notorious magnets for script kiddies and hackers.

were you behind a firewall?

you can easily (if your familiar with pc hardware and have a second computer -or maybe you can bring it to a buddy's place) remove your drive and place it as a slave in another PC to recover the downloaded files. it would also be an easy way to scan that drive for any possible trojans, etc to confirm or refute my guess.

you can also just re-run windows setup from the cdrom to try a repair install, which probably will be successful barring any file system corruption or infections.

 

[kpetursson]

I tried to reinstall windows last time, but the oly thing on the computer that I really want is the partially downloaded files that hide inside shareaza. I don't think I'll be able to do this though, as the program files and directory names have all been messed up (as I mentioned above)

When I went to reinstall windows it told me I needed to run scandisk. I ran scandisk and it found a bunch of files and folders with invalid characters in their names, and renamed them to continue checking. I ran it a second time and it found the renamed files (from the first run) still weren't any good.

Oh well. Just thought I'd see if someone else had recovered from this before.
I guess I look at installing linux, and hopefully won't have this problem.

Kevin Petursson
--
"Everyone says quotable things everyday, but their not famous... so nobody cares."... Some Person

 

[jimp56]

yes, sorry. it seems like malicious or not, it was probably a buffer over-run that messed things up. will probably continue with 98.

 

[edfair]

If you decide to keep 98 you would be better served to us a boot disk to repartition and reformat the drive. Then would suggest putting the install stuff on the hard drive and install from there.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.