System Info
OS: Wxp (sp3) Home
Windows firewall
Avast Antivirus
Wireless internet run through a combo router/modem
Linksys wireless adapter
Simpletech portable usb drive (320GB)
2 hard drives (OS drive/extra drive)
OS drive is strictly for programs
Extra drive is strictly for music
Portable strictly for downloaded files, graphics, tools, docs, photos, and books.
Very long story short, the usb drive and my computer started acting "funny" in Jan.
• Error Msgs start
• Wireless Internet issues start (intermittent signal/freezing/dropped connections/extremely slow downloading)
• Constantly repairing connections.
• FF starts randomly switching to offline mode.
Internet connection was really slow, sporadic, and dropped frequently.
Usb drive starts disappearing from disk management and my computer. Rebooting/reconnecting work at first to fix, finally reached a point where these are no longer working to fix. Leaving the usb drive alone and unconnected for a few days will fix the connection problem and the drive will auto-play like normal. The drive will open after this, but after a minutes more than 1/2 the folders appear empty and the drive will disappear again.
Numerous messages are in the event viewer such as (will provide txt. file if need be)
• System event #'s 7036/7035/57/50/26
• Security event #'s: 513/514/576/615/850/849/515/540/680/518
PcArmDrv.exe
An error was detected on device %1 during a paging operation.
IO_WARNING_LOG_FLUSH_FAILEDThe system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.
Recycle bin error for usb drive
Tried basic troubleshooting with no success. (changing usb cords, changing ports, etc.)
Have run on all drives just about all the major mal/ad programs, virus, etc. with only the 2 following problems:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\FirewallDisableNotify (Disabled.SecurityCenter)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\FirewallOverride
Thinking the usb drive was bad, I took it to the computer lab at the college as a last ditch effort hoping to maybe recover at the least some of the files.
Connected it to a computer there, it took about five minutes for the computer to see it and the auto-play to start. I access the drive through DOS, and start copying the files.
Out of curiosity I open the drive through my computer like you would normally just to see if I could open the folders. Lo and behold I can, and everything is intact.
Ran Malwarebytes and it found 2 trojans the root folder of the usb registry and a bunch of adware stuff.
With all that, before I attempt to connect the usb drive to my computer at home I would like to ask a few questions.
What should I do with my computer before reconnecting the usb drive?
A clean install of xp?
A run of mal/ad and virus software?
I would greatly appreciate it if someone would please point me in the right direction.
Computer Security