Silver Phoenix
New Member
Sorry if this is in the wrong section. ^^;;
Anyways, I basically have a few problems in which I think might be relate to each other. My OS is a Windows XP Professional.
(I've typed a lot below, but I felt I should be as clear and detailed as possible. ^^;; )
This first problem occurred last night, when I was browsing around the web and at some point my internet just refused to load anything. I tried opening a new IE window, yet it couldn't connect to the internet. I then tried to use access the internet with Firefox, but still it doesn't work. If there is anything that I can recall that might be the problem, I remember downloading a program, and tried running it, but only to find out that it's something else (I forgot the name, but I'm pretty sure it had "aqua" as part of it's name. Some unknown program I'm guessing since I've never heard of that thing before...) and that it disappeared right after I double clicked it. At some point after that, I just couldn't access the internet. IE also occasionally froze whenever I tried to open it.
So, I suspected it might've been something like a virus, and did a scan with Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware SE Personal (in that order). Spybot found 6 Trojans, and removed all of them. Ad-Aware didn't find anything harmful on the other hand. I thought that the problem was solved, and thought that the internet was just down temporarily, so I just went to bed.
The next day (today), I realized that I'm still unable to access the internet. In addition to that, I was unable to access my C Drive and portable HD directly. So I ran ComboFix, which solved the problem with the Drives, but not the internet nor the IE issue. I think I solved the IE problem by deselecting a certain option regarding 3rd party access (something like that) from the IE Properties. However, I still couldn't access the internet. I also ran Hijackthis and fixed all of the O17 entries, did a SmitfruadFix scan as well, but those didn't help either.
I've also tried using the "xp_del_winsock.reg" and "xp_winsock.reg", but that didn't work either. Thus, I decided to go with the System Restore as the last resort, only to find out that System Restore won't work either. All of the restore points are there, but whenever I click the "Next" button on the page after selecting the restore point, it just doesn't to anything. Running System Restore in Safe Mode didn't help as well. So, as a last attempt to fix things, I backed-up the entire System Volume Information folder, reinstalled System Restore, put the back-up back in place, but System Restore acted the same. The restore points could be restored, but the "Next" button just doesn't work.
The only way in which I can access the internet right now is to switch to my Mac system on my computer. I'm using a MacBook Pro which has both a Windows XP Professional and a Mac system. The problem only occurs in Windows though. I can access the internet with no problem on my Mac system. And... I think I'm using an Ethernet connection.
And one last problem is that... I forgot what I did, but now I can't directly access my portable HD anymore. I know I unplugged it at some point to avoid it being affected by the System Restore, but after I plugged it back in, I couldn't access it through "My Computer". For some reason it also shows my portable HD as "Offline" (or whatever the term is...) when I click on the System Restore preferences link in the System Restore. The same thing occurs in my USB, in which I cannot access it normally. I could access it by right clicking the icon and from one of the options there (I use a Chinese computer so I dunno how to translate it. >_<), and I could open all of the files in there without problems however.
Does anyone know how to solve my internet problem and my portable HD problem? Most of what I've done was from searching around the web for solutions. I was considering changing my IP address, but was afraid that it could 'cause problems with other programs. I really want to save my Windows system without needing to reinstall the entire thing. ^^;;
==EDIT==
Another problem that I have is regarding the time displayed in the taskbar. It's 5 hours faster than the correct time. Occurred at some point today.
==EDIT==
Another update on the problem:
I forgot to mention before that occasionally when Windows tries to start up, it would fail (meet the blue screen of death, even though for only less than a second...), and thus it would restart again. Also, I realized that if I start up my Windows system while having my external HD plugged in, I won't have trouble accessing my external HD directly through "My Computer". If I unplug the HD and plug it back in though, it won't work again. The Start up problem started to happen the first time I tried to get into Safe Mode, in which I had to try about 3 times before Windows finally got into Safe Mode. After that, the problem occurs for normal mode too. Whenever the start up fails, the next time I try to start Windows, it would always lead me to that F8 screen.
Anyways, I basically have a few problems in which I think might be relate to each other. My OS is a Windows XP Professional.
(I've typed a lot below, but I felt I should be as clear and detailed as possible. ^^;; )
This first problem occurred last night, when I was browsing around the web and at some point my internet just refused to load anything. I tried opening a new IE window, yet it couldn't connect to the internet. I then tried to use access the internet with Firefox, but still it doesn't work. If there is anything that I can recall that might be the problem, I remember downloading a program, and tried running it, but only to find out that it's something else (I forgot the name, but I'm pretty sure it had "aqua" as part of it's name. Some unknown program I'm guessing since I've never heard of that thing before...) and that it disappeared right after I double clicked it. At some point after that, I just couldn't access the internet. IE also occasionally froze whenever I tried to open it.
So, I suspected it might've been something like a virus, and did a scan with Spybot S&D and Ad-Aware SE Personal (in that order). Spybot found 6 Trojans, and removed all of them. Ad-Aware didn't find anything harmful on the other hand. I thought that the problem was solved, and thought that the internet was just down temporarily, so I just went to bed.
The next day (today), I realized that I'm still unable to access the internet. In addition to that, I was unable to access my C Drive and portable HD directly. So I ran ComboFix, which solved the problem with the Drives, but not the internet nor the IE issue. I think I solved the IE problem by deselecting a certain option regarding 3rd party access (something like that) from the IE Properties. However, I still couldn't access the internet. I also ran Hijackthis and fixed all of the O17 entries, did a SmitfruadFix scan as well, but those didn't help either.
I've also tried using the "xp_del_winsock.reg" and "xp_winsock.reg", but that didn't work either. Thus, I decided to go with the System Restore as the last resort, only to find out that System Restore won't work either. All of the restore points are there, but whenever I click the "Next" button on the page after selecting the restore point, it just doesn't to anything. Running System Restore in Safe Mode didn't help as well. So, as a last attempt to fix things, I backed-up the entire System Volume Information folder, reinstalled System Restore, put the back-up back in place, but System Restore acted the same. The restore points could be restored, but the "Next" button just doesn't work.
The only way in which I can access the internet right now is to switch to my Mac system on my computer. I'm using a MacBook Pro which has both a Windows XP Professional and a Mac system. The problem only occurs in Windows though. I can access the internet with no problem on my Mac system. And... I think I'm using an Ethernet connection.
And one last problem is that... I forgot what I did, but now I can't directly access my portable HD anymore. I know I unplugged it at some point to avoid it being affected by the System Restore, but after I plugged it back in, I couldn't access it through "My Computer". For some reason it also shows my portable HD as "Offline" (or whatever the term is...) when I click on the System Restore preferences link in the System Restore. The same thing occurs in my USB, in which I cannot access it normally. I could access it by right clicking the icon and from one of the options there (I use a Chinese computer so I dunno how to translate it. >_<), and I could open all of the files in there without problems however.
Does anyone know how to solve my internet problem and my portable HD problem? Most of what I've done was from searching around the web for solutions. I was considering changing my IP address, but was afraid that it could 'cause problems with other programs. I really want to save my Windows system without needing to reinstall the entire thing. ^^;;
==EDIT==
Another problem that I have is regarding the time displayed in the taskbar. It's 5 hours faster than the correct time. Occurred at some point today.
==EDIT==
Another update on the problem:
I forgot to mention before that occasionally when Windows tries to start up, it would fail (meet the blue screen of death, even though for only less than a second...), and thus it would restart again. Also, I realized that if I start up my Windows system while having my external HD plugged in, I won't have trouble accessing my external HD directly through "My Computer". If I unplug the HD and plug it back in though, it won't work again. The Start up problem started to happen the first time I tried to get into Safe Mode, in which I had to try about 3 times before Windows finally got into Safe Mode. After that, the problem occurs for normal mode too. Whenever the start up fails, the next time I try to start Windows, it would always lead me to that F8 screen.
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