VIRUS DESTROYED MY HD! THE HD DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE! 4

[Mudassar]

Please Help!

I had a Virus on my computer called Junkie.mp I didn't know about it untill my hard drive started making wierd clicking sounds. I was able to remove the virus it via DOS but by then the virus destroyed most of my HD! It just keeps making those cluck or clicking noises. I can't even format the hard drive. It gives me an error when its up to 4% of formatting.

I used fdisk and a HD repair program like spinrite 5. it just doesn't work.

I know a virus did this because it was also on my other computer which I bought last month. However, I took action quicker this time and killed it. BUT at the middle of the HD, it makes the clicking sound for a few seconds and then it returns to normal. In other words the virus did a bit of damage of my newer computers HD but not as much as it did on my other one.

Anyway I could fix this? Sorry for making this long. I hope you understand what I said. (VERY STRESSED!)

Thanks
MK

 

[Shuja]

Hi
There is no virus on earth which can damage HDD physically.
There rae two types of Bad sectors, Logical and Physical. Virus can create bad sectors logically. And by using seagate Zero Fill Software you can remove the bad logical sectors. The software can be downloaded free from

http://www.seagate.com

 

[gamblers]

At the time that a virus can not actually harm a physical device the damage that a virus can cause can be so great that it can make the hard disk make the noises that he is talking about. And to my knowledge if the virus affected your hard drive that bad it is time to get a new one because there is no way that you can fix it.

 

[Alt255]

Just a note: the statement that a virus cannot physically damage a hard drive is untrue. A rapid series of calls to Interrupt 13h, Function 19h can hurt the hardware.

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com​

 

[ashobe]

Just checked with McAfee and Norton. A virus cannot cause physical damage to your hard drive. It can infect the CMOS though. I would trust people who deal with this stuff day in and day out before I would trust the nay sayers on this board.

My 2C worth

 

[basweek]

Hello,

The clicking/clunking is a problem with the hard drive. It is the head servo going in and out of the park position. The hard drive is no good anymore. Contact the drive manufacturer and hope it is still under warranty. There is nothing that you can do to fix this.

Sorry

 

[spacekowboy]

if a hacker can access your computer and tell the hd to read a file way off the hd, like 300 gigs later, and thereby, ruin the hard drive as it tries and tries to access it, why cldnt a virus do likewise?

X-)

 

[osuman]

I think there are a lot of rumors circulating about what hackers/viruses are capable of doing. I would venture to say that a harddrive will not attempt to do something it cannot. Of course, I'm no expert, but I just don't see how a piece of hardware performing a function it's made to do can harm it. This being in reference to the earlier post about a series of calls to Int13, Function19h. Furthermore, I don't understand how a call to a sector off the disk is going to damage anything. It knows how many cylinders it has and is not going to attempt to locate something it doesn't have. Even if this did work it would imply that the head is trying to move to far and burning itself out or something. Sectors, heads and whatnot are addressed in certain ways and I just don't think a HD can be "tricked" into moving to far or trying to do something that can physically damage it.

If someone can point me in the direction of a good, reliable article about how this type of damage can be made, I would be interested to read it. Until I see this sort of source though I would be forced to agree with andrews83 and say that the people at Mcaffe and Norton know more than rumors that circulate around on the internet. Justin

Feel free to email me at:
beckham@mailbox.orst.edu

 

[thadwalt]

I would not try using a magnet on the disk either because there are other parts around that you do not want the magnet around.

 

[spacekowboy]

i didnt realize it was even a question,
so ill start a new thread about the virus
harming hardware and someone with the apropos
letters after their name will set us all straight.

X-) , esq.

 

[Mudassar]

ANYBODY WANT THIS VIRUS AND TEST IT FOR YOUR SELF??? REALLY! -----------------
MK

Everybody should use AntiVirus! Are you protected now?

 

[NiteRuleR]

I used to have a little fun reverse engineering viruses, but no longer... the machine I used to decompile on is now very dead, i wonder why

I currently have a collection of 700+ viruses (either collected or had sent to me) along with source for more than half of them... all safely zipped where they can do no harm

 

[Mudassar]

That’s pretty cool. How did you reverse engineer viruses? Its amazing how people these days can hack into programs and change settings so eg, the CD would no longer be required ..etc... Anyway back to the subject:

HELP STILL REQUIRED:

Computer2 now works fine (After Low Level Format). Computer1 is stuffed. When I turn the computer on the Hard Drive immediately starts making those clicking sounds. So I guess the Bad sectors have reached at the beginning of the drive. Which also means the hard drive can no longer be detected by the BIOS, nor any other programs. I need to MANUALLY change all those BITS into ZEROS. (Since I can't Low Level Format) Any suggestions???

I set it to Slave.
Freezed it for an hour.
Smashed it.
Left it running for 24 hours.
Still no good.

I didn't physically damage the HD. OK EVERYBODY!! HD IS PHYSICALLY OK!

******************************************************
MY QUESTION IS:

HOW CAN I MANUALLY (PHYSICALLY) SET ALL THE BITS IN THE HD TO ZEROS??
******************************************************
EG. Like getting a strong magnet (I haven’t tried yet but I think I will)
-----------------
MK

Everybody should use AntiVirus! Are you protected now?

 

[Alt255]

Eventually, after all the anger and denial, you reach the "acceptance stage". The hard drive in Computer #1 is dead. I didn't want to be the one who had to tell you... I know how hard it can be.

There is a certain point where you have to pick up the pieces and go on with the rest of your life. I am so sorry.

Compared to the health risks associated with stress, hard drives are very inexpensive. Buy a new one and have a blast with it.

Alt255@Vorpalcom.Intranets.com​

 

[Mudassar]

Actually the computer #1 is a Laptop. So the HD are quite expensive. Especially this one because it's slim. It will cost me $600.00 to replace it. Maybe I should just as well buy a new laptop.

Thanks for your help everyone! I guess Viruses CAN cause physical damage to a hard drive. Or at least in a state where it can no longer be used.

MK

Everybody should use AntiVirus! Are you protected now?

 

[jsauce]

I have a simple analogy. If you hand someone a gun to kill themselve, isn't it assisted suicide? And aren't you as much the cause of their death as that person?

A virus is a piece of software, it does not exist except logically. If the virus instructs the hard drive to attempt read and writes to infinity, burning the hard drive, it may not have physically destroyed it, but it certainly was the cause. John D. Saucier
webmaster@johnnyfilth.com

http://www.johnnyfilth.com

Certified Technician

 

[spazzo]

I found this forum while searching for information about clicking hard drives. My daughter's computer is doing the clicking thing, and scandisk was showing some bad sectors, but scandisk was running slower and slower. Her computer is a 733Mhz Pentium III, Windows 98, 256 K memory, with Western Digital 20 Gig main drive, and a 40 Gig slave drive (for video production work).
I'm wondering what the final outcome of the clicking thing was, as we are just starting this whole process. Did anyone ever difinitively prove that a virus could cause such problems? Her virus software (not Norton or Macaffe) hasn't detected anything, but the thing doesn't want to boot up either.
Currently trying to install Windows ME.

 

[edfair]

Unstated by the original poster. But I can unequivocally state that I lost one the same way a week and a half ago. Started down the path on a Friday night, shut it down. Saturday before I could finish the first partition backup it quit reading anything. Took about 30 minutes of runtime to totally destroy itself. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[kd4yuw]

Just an idea guys,
In my times of tinkering with Frankenputers I have noticed that sometimes when the BIOS settings for HD (heads, sectors) are incorrect, I have had scandisk to start marking all sectors as bad. I know that does nothing to explain the clicking but if a virus could change HD settings in BIOS, then it *might* explain the bad sectors.
Hope my senseless babble helps someone ;-)

David

 

[Mudassar]

I fixed my HD by doing a low level format. It fixed the clicking problem. I am not really sure what the HD was doing when it was making those clicking sounds. How was it making it? -----------------
MK

Everybody should use AntiVirus! Are you protected now?

 

[edfair]

When it had trouble finding a sector pointed to by either the starting address in the directory or a continuing address in the FAT it tried several times then recalibrated. Causes the heads to move to cylinder 0, which may also be the location of the mechanical stop. Usual click is a head mechanism crash under power into the mechanical stop. Crash is also a relative term not neccessarily related to two cars going head on.
Failure to find a sector is resolved by low level formatiing that lays down a complete track(s) of intermixed address and data.
But with modern drives, requiring low level is temporary at best as it indicates something major is going wrong inside the case. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.com

Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply.

Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.