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Socrates 01-03-2004 15:31

Socrates.com
 
Well, better start a thread in which I can tell what's going on in my little Paris's suburbs.

First, this month of March is gonna be filled with exams all along, so I won't for sure start any game before at least one month. My 2 current games can still go on, it will depend if I'm in a rush this or that day.

Now to the fucking part. I got a virus last week-end !!! [cry] I feel sorry for Skyfish, who got injured (but not too much, I hope ?) through me. What pieces of advice can you guys give me ? So far I haven't installed any anti-virus programs or anti-spam programs, thinking my Web surfing would be "clean". [blush2] Now that I understand it's not guaranteed, I need to install stuff. I think we have McAfee at home, and AdAware is free : will those two be OK ? How can I get rid of my current virus ? It's called "I-Worm.Moodown.b", if it's the only source of problems so far !! Damn, I'm fucking angry now ! :(

ERIKK 01-03-2004 16:19

A nice firewall and antivirus program would be nice!

How did Sky got affected? You emailed him a deadly attachment??? ;)

anarres 01-03-2004 17:00

krys, here are the manual removal instructions for your virus. Note that McAfee and Adaware a more than enough to stop 95% of virus'/spyware/adware, etc, but you have to keep them UPDATED, and you have to RUN THEM. McAfee should stay running, always. Adaware should be run at least once a week. BOTH products must be updated once a week (at least) to keep them protected.

Quote:

quote:
Terminating the Malware Program

This procedure terminates the running malware process from memory. You will need the name(s) of the file(s) detected earlier.

1: Open Windows Task Manager.
On Windows 95/98/ME systems, press CTRL+ALT+DELETE
On Windows NT/2000/XP systems, press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC, then click the Processes tab.
2: In the list of running programs*, locate the malware file or files detected earlier.
3: Select one of the detected files, then press either the End Task or the End Process button, depending on the version of Windows on your system.
4: Do the same for all detected malware files in the list of running processes.
5: To check if the malware process has been terminated, close Task Manager, and then open it again.
6: Close Task Manager.

Removing Autostart Entries from the Registry

Removing autostart entries from the registry prevents the malware from executing during startup.

1: Open Registry Editor. To do this, click Start>Run, type Regedit, then press Enter.
2: In the left panel, double-click the following:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE>Software>Microsoft>Win dows>CurrentVersion>Run
3: In the right panel, locate and delete the entry:
service = %Windows%\services.exe -serv
4: In the left panel, double-click the following:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT>CLSID>{E6FB5E20-DE35-11CF-9C87-00AA005127ED}
5: Right-click the following key and add a new subkey named:
InProcServer32
6: In the right panel, double-click the (Default) entry and change its value to:
%System%\WEBCHECK.DLL
7: Close Registry Editor.

Socrates 01-03-2004 18:19

I think you got it right, anarres. Your quote tells me about that "services.exe", and that what was running each time I started my PC (I'm now sure of it) ; it auto-terminates each time after like 5 minutes (you know, the Windows crash, and BTW, I saw it taking some good parts of the RAM in the Windows Task Manager). The little fuck installed a lot of things inside Windows folder and sub-folders (easily seen with a search in the Windows folder for changed files during last week).

Now I did what you told me, in the Registry (what a mess, this stuff !). I hope it stops running, now, on PC starts. But I need to clean the PC with McAfee. If there seems to be stuff after that (or more complaints from contacts I have), then I'll just delete my whole HD once again... losing so much time transfering vital files to another PC before formatting... [aargh]

I have found quite a lot of fake files : should I remove them myself ?

Here a little sample of some stuff : I can't believe hackers are so desperate in life to lose their time creating this.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...73328_fake.JPG
18.66KB

Other stuffs are here and there too.

Skyfish 01-03-2004 20:55

[eek] Horrible!
Get rid of all of it !


PS : I can see our dearest of hackers, Matrix, managed to infect you as well, it's a small world after all [lol]

Socrates 02-03-2004 02:17

I think I got rid of that motherfucker now. [goodjob] I basically deleted everything by hand !! First deleted this 2nd services.exe in the WINDOWS folder. Then deleted the zips (I think : 24) in the same folder. Then deleted the dozens of 24-file bunches (image above is part of that) that were copied in every folder containing "share" in its name and each of their subfolders ! All of this after doing what anarres told me, and doing what was mentioned about this virus on the McAfee site.

Now if anyone encounters something wrong that could come from me (or one of my possible contacts...), please e-mail me as soon as possible. It should be OK, but you're never sure.

One important thing : to avoid possible confusion (I opened up the fake exe from an e-mail coming from a "sure" address at 1am, so I wasn't in special beware mode :D ), please sign all your e-mails !!! Write at least 1 word or 2 (I usually write "turn xxx"), and sign it, with your real name, nick or "nick's nick" (mine is "krys" :D ) to ensure this is an e-mail you actually wrote and sent. Any weird e-mail will be deleted immediately. I encourage you to the same.

anarres 02-03-2004 11:26

krys, the way to not get a virus in the future is not to open a .exe that is obviously a virus. ;)

Socrates 02-03-2004 15:56

Yes, but... yes, but... Can anyone estwing him on the head ? :D [estwing]

Seriously, I received that from a sure address, and that had more value than the weird and short body text and the damn attachment. Won't make it twice. All my friends are potential enemies, must be suspicious... [evil]

anarres 02-03-2004 17:49

Umm, nearly ALL virus' spread by sending email from your friends infected computers! [:o]

Lt. Killer M 02-03-2004 18:06

I actually got an email form an INEXISTENT email (a typo of my email on our homepage) TO the very same INEXISTENT email arriving at a different email....

the virus collects addresses on the web and uses them as camouflage. So the purpoted source sasy NOTHING!

Socrates 19-03-2004 22:33

Just a little note to say I won't be here (and won't visit CDZ) from Tuesday to Sunday next week. I'm going to an observatory in the Provence hills (they say mountains, but I'd rather say hills :D ). This is for my studies (I'm in Astronomy and Astrophysics). We will go to bed at 5am every night !!! [eek]

So no turns will be played, for either Skyfish and Killer during that time.

Socrates 06-04-2004 15:02

Here is a 1st bunch of pics that I took with my numerical camera, when I was in the observatory in Provence (south of France). All pics from space in this post were taken with the camera behind one of the optical ouput of a 80-cm telescope.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...34135_Moon.JPG
24.98KB

In case you didn't recognize, this is the Moon during the 1st crescent.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...er - flash.JPG
10.37KB

Shooting Jupiter with flash (why not ?) ; you can see some of its strips on the surface.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...45_Jupiter.JPG
15.23KB

Still Jupiter, but with no flash. The powerful God is so bright !! And you can see what seems to be three of its Galilean satellites.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...rn - flash.JPG
10.38KB

Saturn with flash. Too bad that the conversion to a JPG took some light away ; the initial shot was better.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...740_Saturn.JPG
11.86KB

Saturn with no flash. You can still see its rings, in the middle of this very bright form. Maybe its biggest satellite, Titan, is on the left.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...pe - upper.JPG
62.74KB

The night after that, in the 120-cm telescope. The upper part of the telescope.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...e - middle.JPG
79.96KB

Still the 120-cm one. You can see some of its mechanical parts.

Next post will be for pics taken with the 120-cm telescope, but through a CCD.

Skyfish 06-04-2004 20:49

very nice !

Beam 06-04-2004 23:32

Cool pics krys, specially the ones with Titan and 3 of the 4 Galilean satelites in the Jupiter pic. Did you do measeruments as well in order to identify the satelites?

Socrates 24-04-2004 15:49

@ Beam : No we didn't do measurements there, because it was done with the 80cm telescope, which was only for lurking purpose. It would require to know the satellites' positions on their orbits, or to observe them several nights, because you clearly miss one dimension on the picture.

Time for some 3-colour pics from the CCD installed on the 120cm telescope ! As I sometimes can't recall what pics I took personnally (me and another guy, because there were a few groups which rotate on several nights), I suppose these were "my" pics !

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...yra Nebula.JPG
15.42KB

The planetary nebula in Lyra (M57).

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...Leo Galaxy.JPG
45.11KB

One of the galaxies in the Leo constellation (M66). The 3 layers don't fit nicely, due to atmospheric perturbations.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...ell Nebula.JPG
41.58KB

The Dumbbell Nebula (NGC 6853). I think it's this one, comparing to other pics from the Internet !! It doesn't look like a 3-colour pic, all the more as it was taken on a different night.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...ar Cluster.JPG
56.72KB

A globular cluster (of stars). It could be any one of them, I can't recall which one it was. I should have kept a better paper of what we shot ! (and maybe it wasn't one of "my" pics too...)

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...ral Galaxy.JPG
34.14KB

A spiral galaxy seen from above (or below). It could be any one of such galaxies, since it's not one of my pics.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...absorption.JPG
26.3KB

A galaxy seen from the side (not one of my pics). You can see the absorption of light due to interstellar clouds (dark parts). Such clouds "eat" the visible light and reject some infrared light (thus invisible), due to their low temperature.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...ero Galaxy.JPG
12.9KB

The Sombrero Galaxy (not one of my pics). I know it's this one, since it heavily looks like those from the Internet. Beautiful shot.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...ltraviolet.JPG
7.97KB

Saturn in ultraviolet. Not nice to see because it was printed and then re-scanned ! We tried to shoot it in visible light, but the damn CCD couldn't take very quick shots (less than 3 seconds) : the planet was really too brilliant in such wavelenghts, so we just did it in UV.

Well, I didn't post all pics, since other ones weren't as interesting and nice, and we screwed some more (3-layer thingie). It was a nice week.

Socrates 26-06-2004 20:07

Some of you may have seen a strange MSN pseudo these days, and it has to do with my new summer job. I'm working in welcome stuff in some of Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle airport's terminals. I basically walk all the time in one section of the terminal, searching for people who might need some information/advice/help. I will work in terminals 1 and 3 during July and maybe August. The job sometimes starts at 7am and sometimes ends at 11pm !! [eek] Not on the same day of course... And fortunately there are many days off. I wear a yellow shirt and black trousers, so if you happen to travel to Paris this summer, via Roissy, then you may see me there !

Tell me if this is the case for someone. :D

Socrates 25-10-2004 01:42

This thread needs an update ! [bump] First of all, I needed to tell that working in an airport this summer was a little hard (but nice) from one point of view. I saw so many nice girls during those months that I sometimes was a little [crazyeye] for a while. The good part is I (and my colleagues) could see and talk to so many pretty ones. The bad part is that it could only last a few minutes at max. :( Mmmh, should I pick one up, I'd say that (I suppose) late-20s girl (with boyfriend) which was so beautiful and nice to talk to. She was leaving to Egypt, possibly Luxor ; had she told me to come with her straight away (and leave the boyfriend !! ;) ), I would have done it. Dear airport... :D


OK, why another post ? Last Friday I visited a museum, and that was my 1st personal initiative ever. [blush2] You guessed it, I went to the Musée du Louvre in Paris, it's now free from 6pm to 10pm for 26- people on Fridays. [tongue] So I went there and took some crappy pics. Here are 3 of them. Aggie, you can laugh big time...

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...oudron CDZ.JPG
66.87*KB

A mummy that was put into black tar and other stuff, dating from Greek or Roman Egypt ; it was a guy who died at the age of 21. Quite impressive to see it in real.

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...6_Zeus CDZ.JPG
48.23*KB

The God of the Gods, Zeus himself, with thunder in his hand. I tried to shot him from below because it is Zeus after all. [tongue] You can see how good I am to make blurry pics. [mischief]

http://www.civ3duelzone.com/forum/up...e Milo CDZ.JPG
75.47*KB

A classic from the Louvre : "Vénus de Milo". Can't remember if that is the statue that an old Greek guy found around his house and kept touching at night on hiw own. [lol] Erk. Nice tits BTW.

That's all folks. Next time I'll learn how to take photos.

Socrates 10-12-2004 10:09

I went a second time to the Louvre, one week afterwards, but this time I hadn't any camera. :( A pity, since I saw some cool Persian mosaics, a reconstitution of an Assyrian royal room (with the winged tauruses), and... a black stone with Hammurabi's code of laws in its entirety. [cool] What a blast to see it there, and laugh at some of the laws ! [lol]

Anyway, it's roughly 10am this morning, quite an unusual time for me to be awake. That's because it's the 3rd time in 2 weeks that I haven't slept a wink at night, and decided to get up to stop trying to sleep. This is with quite certainty related to my recent sickness, which I'm gonna explain a bit here. I had been under antidepressant for 4 months, not a strong treatment but still. This basically was to help me doing things in my life. I had a look at the notice, and I found out I was in its "social phobies" category. [crazyeye] They put the "" too. Maybe some of you will find it odd, well I don't know if I appeared so in Breda. [hmm] I think it's more the way I fear the business world et al... But back on topic : the doctor told me to stop it for a while because I had the feeling it didn't do me anything (at least now). So... I suddenly stopped taking it, and 3 days later I was sick. :( It lasted a week, where I just couldn't help staying in bed. It wasn't a headache, but a general [crazyeye] (smiley says it better than me) that made me wanted to sleep all day. Couldn't even stay a while in front of my PC, it was too hard for the head. Sorry for the delays in my games (Swimming Pool and Diplo). I now think I won't touch any of those medicines, they're too dangerous, and I'd better solve my problems on my own.

Oh while I'm at it. I never wanted to retake it during the sickness, so as to quit with it on an easier pace ; now that I had stopped it, all I wanted is to let it go, fucking medicine ! :D Once, as I was feeling very bad, I was about to call for God or something (maybe it is due to the language, strongly related to God-ish quotes) ; I immediately decided it was nonsense, and didn't start praying any God at all, and told to myself "fuck, I'll just let time pass and that's it !" Inch Allah !! [lol] Losers.

akots 10-12-2004 10:13

Yep, stop poisoning yourself with these chemicals. I know first-hand they are not good.

ERIKK 10-12-2004 10:57

Havent noticed anything in Breda Krys. I agree it's wise to stop taking these things but if it
prevents you from getting sick I realy don't know what is wise and what not.

Hope you get better (and some sleep ;)) soon! :)

Socrates 05-01-2005 22:23

Time for an update (don't wanna make a blog, but I find it nice to tell my friends what I do).

I didn't resume taking medicines. [thumbsup] I don't think I'll come back to it soon (if not ever). ERIKK, you didn't notice anything, but that's normal : this stuff was quite "silent", and I wouldn't have come to Breda to stay on my own. [crazyeye] I felt quite at home there, a weird feeling, and so I want to re-thank Beam for the welcome.

I went skiing to my usual ski village (Alps), with no family but with friends. [goodjob] At last I could do that, and I was proud to invite some friends who had never skied or seen snow in mountains. Maybe I'm smart enough to organize another kind of reunion someday... [mischief]

I started my 1st real job in my life last Monday !!! :) I'll work for 6 months in a company dealing with other companies that work on office installing (when a company decides to move to another building). My company does a thing called "space planning". I'll oversee an office installement near our own office (5 min), just ouside the city of Paris.

My brother came back from Reunion Island tonight. [cool] After 6 months spent over there, and about a year after coming back from Australia (6 months too). Great to have the bastard here again ! :)

Pastorius 06-01-2005 01:01

Quote:

quote:Great to have the bastard here again !
So, your mother WAS a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries then



:D

Socrates 29-01-2005 01:28

Message for Paali : dude, move your ass and get the latest version of SNes9x (v1.43) !! It's got a video feature, and now you can shoot your games, lol. I started to do it for F-Zero, and that's so cool. The videos are stored in a special format, only readable by the emulator, and they are very light. Only when you convert them to avi's are they damn heavy. I think I'll shoot much stuff soon, why not Zelda 3, mmmmh maybe boring, or my tales in Street Fighter 2... Oh the joy. [cool]

I wonder if I'll often play Civ3 now.... Mmmh lately I've always been waiting for my saves, so no problemo. [mischief]

Pastorius 31-01-2005 00:01

Tres cool. Have they fixed multiplayer yet?

A friend of mine almost beats street figther on lvl 6 [eek]

I suck on level 2-3 [:o]

Socrates 31-01-2005 00:28

Très cool indeed. :D If you want, we can exchange vids via MSN or mail, they're so light. You only need the 1.43 version and the ROM. I made a vid of F-Zero where I almost lost, but... no. :)

Fucker, you told me you beat Street Fighter 2 on level 8 with Dhalsim !!! [eek] I'm gonna beat you for sure now, cause once I stopped at M. Bison on level 8 with Ryu, that was with Super Street Fighter 2.

They disabled the netplay feature because they somehow found out that it wasn't working... at all ? [crazyeye]

Pastorius 31-01-2005 00:49

Yes - when I played SF2 on amiga, I kicked derniere (spelling?) @ level 8. on the emulator, I suck. Damn controls....

Aw darn. Netplay would have been awesome.

But I found SSF2 for PC (I think). Will try and see if the controls are better. Isnt too large. If I can remember the url as well, lemme c...

found url

http://www.abandondata.nl/info.php?t...e&i=ssfighter2


dutchies running the site.

Socrates 14-03-2005 03:12

Bad news : I got a serious problem on my PC, and I don't know what it is about. Basically I can't access the HD partition I made for my data, but still can do what I want in the partition with the system things. The PC doesn't start properly, I need to press a key to resume. It says "HD status BAD" or something similar. It wants to check the HD every time I start the PC, and finds hundreds of unreadable parts. It is very slow in using otherwise. FYI I have no anti-virus program installed, but went nowhere unknown tonight.

Please if someone can help me tomorrow... :( I'm clueless.

Until this is fixed (I hope it will be), all my PBEMs are on hold.

Pastorius 14-03-2005 10:02

http://www.grisoft.com - get AVG 7 free version - free virus scanning suite

or if that is problematic:

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ (needs activeX to be enabled to run)
Housecall is an online AV scanner


Rik Meleet 14-03-2005 12:44

Here is a diagnostic disk which can test HDD (disque dur) and Memory.

Might be useful for you.

http://support.packardbell.com/nl/my...e_ixtreme#show

anarres 14-03-2005 13:10

No need to diagnose anything: Your hard drive is dying!!!

You must BACK IT UP NOW.

If you can't back it up turn off your PC NOW!!!!

Essentially every time you turn it on there is a chance it will die forever. The next time it is used MUST be to remove the data you need (if it's not too late already)...

To back it up you will need a second hard drive. If you have one turn off your pc, put it in, reboot, then transfer all your data to it. If you don't have one you need to buy one because your current drive will die any moment.

If you're really really scared of what's inside you will need a friend who isn't or you will need to take your pc to a shop and get them to do it.

Pastorius 14-03-2005 13:29

As an extra precaution, I am rechecking all saves I have received from you Krys.

And I agree with anarres on the harddrive backup. I ve learnt that the hard way [cry]

Socrates 14-03-2005 15:41

Additional info :

- I'm posting from work during daytime. ;)

- It all started when I tried to save the latest save Paali sent me. I was browsing my hard drive to pick up the correct folder, and it wouldn't allow me to enter the "krys v Paali" save folder, but all others were OK !! [eek] And everytime I tried to enter it, I got a message asking if I wanted to format my HD, an offer I declined of course.

- Then after a while, the PC started to mess up the windows... And that's how it came to the status I described above.

- It is obvious that I should back up all I want somewhere else, but how can I do it if I can't enter this part of my HD ? BTW, the "system" partition is fine, as far as I can see : I can still surf on the Internet, etc... When I want to enter the ill part, it says "error of pagination" or something like that.


Now, I can't see how a physical body can be destroyed by some 1's and 0's, but if you say so. :( I have no close friend really "in it", so should I quickly go to a shop ? Any idea of what could have caused this ? An internal error, or a virus coming from the Net ?

Pastorius 14-03-2005 16:10

Krys, I am clean. No viruses, no spyware, trojans or malware.
And I showered this morning, so I am pretty clean in the grand total of things [:p]

This sounds a bit like something a former colleague of mine got. She had to reformat and reinstall everything. If you can - backup as much as possible, and do that. Saves you frustration of trying to clean the disk yourself.


Oh, and for the future, anyone without a virus scanner and firewall are begging for either a regular virus or worm, or a goddamn network virus or worm.

anarres 14-03-2005 16:37

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by kryszcztov

- It is obvious that I should back up all I want somewhere else, but how can I do it if I can't enter this part of my HD ? BTW, the "system" partition is fine, as far as I can see : I can still surf on the Internet, etc... When I want to enter the ill part, it says "error of pagination" or something like that.
This is a very clear indication that your drive is dying. In fact it looks like one of your partitions is already "dead", and non-recoverable...

However, the single line that gives us almost unrefutable proof that this is the problem is this:
Quote:

quote:The PC doesn't start properly, I need to press a key to resume. It says "HD status BAD" or something similar. It wants to check the HD every time I start the PC, and finds hundreds of unreadable parts.
...


Quote:

quote:Now, I can't see how a physical body can be destroyed by some 1's and 0's, but if you say so. :( I have no close friend really "in it", so should I quickly go to a shop ? Any idea of what could have caused this ? An internal error, or a virus coming from the Net ?
*If* I am correct then your hard drive is simply on it's last few moments of life. This is not a problem of 0's and 1's but of the drive heads literally crashing in to the drive platters. A literal "crash"...

*If* this is the case you have a very limited amount of "on" time before it dies. For example, lets say it has 3 minutes of activity before it dies completely (this is an arbitary guess btw).

In this example, when you go home and turn on your PC you have just reduced it's life by 30 seconds. You try and do some stuff like load civ, etc. Now you have it's lifespan down by another 60 seconds. Next you go on the internet and do some stuff, then you go on msm, etc. After a while you power down, but you have now managed to take the hard drive lifespan down to just a few seconds. The next time you boot up it dies before even reaching windows...

A harsh example, but DO NOT GO HOME AND TURN ON YOUR PC UNLESS YOU ARE READY TO BACKUP THE DATA OR LOSE IT.

Also....

Believe me when I tell you that this is the problem - it is almost certainly the hard drive dying and nothing else.

Lt. Killer M 14-03-2005 17:06

krys,

my HDD on my laptop gave up WITHOUT ANY NOTICE - it was fine one evening, the next morning on booting it just didn't do anything.

When I opened the laptop and took out the HDD it made a rattling sound.

THAT's how sudden it can be - and as anarrres said: BACK UP YOUR STUFF b[]ASAP[/b]!!!!!!!

Socrates 14-03-2005 18:00

Thanks Killer, all is not lost. ;)

About my PC. I'm surprised, as I bought it 2.5 years ago only. I did use it quite much, but not like a bastard (read : properly). The fact that they can die without notice is really frightening, I'm even pissed. Do they need to create molecular PCs to run things properly ?

anarres, I have one question : what physically is a partition on a HD ? I only have one HD, and seperate it to have systems and programs on one part, and data on the other one. The system one is running really fine so far, whereas the data one isn't answering. If it is a physical crash (a mechanical fatigue), then why would it affect only one artificial part ? So I still doubt your explanation. And BTW, when it asks me if I want to check the volume before opening Windows (blue screen), with a 10-second notice, it displays the right name of the ill partition (whereas this name is gone in Windows proper).

And all in all, I'm still clueless to what to do, apart from going to the doctor : I can't access the ill partition, period. Without access I can't back up anything. Shit, because I had lots of downloaded concert records and other personal stuff... And to think that I was about to back up some parts yesterday. :(

anarres 14-03-2005 18:33

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_disk

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_crash

Now to explain what a partition actually is I have to simplify a little...

Imagine a hard disk is just 1 physical disk (platter). Note that they can have many now, but if I explain for 1 just imagine 8 identical disks all with 1/8 the data each. This disk is seperated in to many thousands of seperate concentric rings, each ring can store a lot of data (0's and 1's). For this example imagine there are 300 rings - also imagine for the sake of simplicity that all these rings hold the same amount of data (not true at all, but it doesn't matter).

If you seperate this disk in to 3 identically sized partitions you will have the 100 "center" rings as partition 1, the 100 "middle" rings are partition 2, the "outer" rings are partition 3.

Now just remember that the rings are many more than that, there are several platters working in parallel, and the rings all hold different amounts of data. And there you go, a "crash" course in hard drives. :)


Now back to the problem:

The "bad" sectors on your hard drive (as identifed each time you boot - note that the ones noted each time are just the NEW bad sectors!! The others from each boot are marked as "bad" and never seen again - the data from them is lost (literally).

This means that depending on which parts are "bad" some or all of your drive will stop working. After a "crash" the platters are scratched but the drive (sometimes) can still work for the non-scratched parts (note that it's the condition of the head that determines if it is working - the platters are just inaccessable if they are scratched but the head can move past them to read good bits).

Some parts of each partition store the file structure itself. If this part of the partition is damaged the whole partition can be inaccessable.

It is perfectly possible for one partition to get trashed and the rest to be ok - although ANY crash imples the disk is fucked and you better get your data off quick.

Socrates 14-03-2005 19:49

Posting from my father's PC... ;)

Well, if this is what hapenned, this is really unfortunate, and I doubt I can do anything at all but throw the HD into the bin with all its data. There has been no way to access the damaged partition so far, and it's unlikely I'll find one on my own, all the more as you keep telling me not to use my PC. I'll see if I can bring it to a HD-repairer (lol), to at least save the data, but apart from that I think I can forget all the data.

Thanks for your help.

anarres 14-03-2005 21:35

krys - there are *some* things that can be done as you can access the raw data on the partition itself - but they are best tried after everything else as it's fairly unlikely it will work, and even if it does it is quite complex (or at least it was several years ago when I last tried it).

First thing to do is to get data of your C@ (system) drive. Although you may think you've got it all there may be some data there:

1) default location for your documents is: "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents" (this is for Win 2000 - similar for other flavours of windows)
Check here for stuff from "my documents"

2) Outlook by default store your email in: "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook\Outlook.pst" (this is for Win 2000 - similar for other flavours of windows)
Check for this file if you use outlook - other email programs may also store on C:

3) Civ games ;)

4) Any other PC save games (not all, but many force you to store in program files)

5) Any other application data


Once you are *sure* you don't want anything else of the C: drive ask again about getting the data from the D: drive - I need to look it up again, but once you have a new drive and windows installed we can put your old one back in and try to read the data directly from it. As I said before this isn't guarenteed because it has to work out from the 0's and 1's what it all means.

Socrates 14-03-2005 23:35

1) If this is where MSN put the files you get from friends, it is empty.

2) Noted for Outlook, though I don't have much to save from my emails, really...

3) Civ games were all stored on the D part, like the game files.

4) I haven't played any game apart from Civ3 for years... Oh shit, I'll miss some vids from Snes F-Zero. [lol]

5) I kept a folder of all the applications I downloaded, so this will be easy, though not that vital.

It seems I'll have to pay for another drive, something I don't want to do. So I must force myself. Damned consumer society. ;) And all of this is Bill Gates's fault, fucker. :(


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