Reinstalling XP

  • Thread starter Thread starter Morgoth Bauglir
  • Start date Start date
Jeppesen has told us in no uncertain terms that the only thing that will
work is wiping his hard drive.
Click to expand...

Do not follow their so called advice, unless they're willing to provide an xp install cd
themselves!

First try just overwriting the "unused" parts of track zero, which is the most likely place
for them to try to hide their drm key. Use Zvi Netiv's cleantrack0 utility, which you can get
from his site at http://invircible.com/iv_tools.php#CleanTrk

Only if that fails, would I even consider deleting and reinstalling the main windows partition.
Under no condition would I consider wiping the entire drive. If they've written stuff anywhere
on the drive outside of track zero, or the windows partition, I'd bitch like hell about the damage
their software could do to a multi-operating system computer. Mind you, I'd bitch even if they've
written anything to track zero, since that could interfere with a boot loader too.

Regards, Dave Hodgins
 
Do not follow their so called advice, unless they're willing to provide an xp install cd
themselves!
Click to expand...

The owner has a computer that's useless to him without Jeppview; that's
pretty much the only reason he has a computer.

We've got the thing installed on a spare computer at work (with Jeppesen's
permission), but that doesn't really solve his problem.
First try just overwriting the "unused" parts of track zero, which is the most likely place
for them to try to hide their drm key. Use Zvi Netiv's cleantrack0 utility, which you can get
from his site at http://invircible.com/iv_tools.php#CleanTrk
Click to expand...

Interesting site, thanks.
IVINIT sounds interesting, too; I still don't know whether SpySweeper and
PCCillin and Ad-Aware got rid of ALL of the viruses he had.

It says this will only run from true DOS or Win9x; when I tried looking at
the disk in DOS, I couldn't, since DOS doesn't support NTFS.
Will this utility work anyway, regardless of the file system?
Only if that fails, would I even consider deleting and reinstalling the main windows partition.
Under no condition would I consider wiping the entire drive. If they've written stuff anywhere
on the drive outside of track zero, or the windows partition, I'd bitch like hell about the damage
their software could do to a multi-operating system computer. Mind you, I'd bitch even if they've
written anything to track zero, since that could interfere with a boot loader too.
Click to expand...
LOTS of people bitched when TurboTax did that a few years ago.

I doubt very much whether Intuit paid for the systems they'd trashed,
though.
 
The simple solution would be to use WipeDrv's companion program Cleandrv.
Wipedriv is to trash an entire drive partitions and all. Cleandrv will allow
you to specify which partition on the drive you wish to over write. As far
as your soft ware re-installation issue goes you could use the bootdisks
that were mentioned in an earlier post and re-install the original OS
 
Interesting site, thanks.
IVINIT sounds interesting, too; I still don't know whether SpySweeper and
PCCillin and Ad-Aware got rid of ALL of the viruses he had.
Click to expand...

Given the wording on Zvi's site, I wouldn't suggest trying it on a drive with NTFS
partitions.

Any luck with cleaning track zero?

Regards, Dave Hodgins
 
Given the wording on Zvi's site, I wouldn't suggest trying it on a drive with NTFS
partitions.

Any luck with cleaning track zero?
Click to expand...
http://invircible.com/iv_tools.php#CleanTrk says _CleanTrk_ will only run
from true DOS or Win9x; when I tried looking at the disk in DOS, I
couldn't, since DOS doesn't support NTFS.

Will this utility work anyway, regardless of the file system?

I guess if it makes a mess, we could always go back to Plan A (wiping the
entire drive).

It'll be about two weeks before we try anything new; the owner wants e-mail
available for that long, and I've told him the concerns about an unlicensed
copy of Windows. He's asked about simply buying a new hard drive, but I
told him that that wouldn't solve his OS problem.
 
David W. Hodgins said:
Given the wording on Zvi's site, I wouldn't suggest trying it on a drive with NTFS
partitions.
Click to expand...

The wording was a bit too scary and I fixed it for the faint hearted. ;)

IVINIT may be used safely on NTFS, or mixed FAT / NTFS drives for the purpose of
removing MBR infectors, if configured by Windows standard tools. Only drives
that use a third party boot manager shouldn't be subjected to IVINIT. If
running under NT/W2K/XP, then you should run IVINIT of floppy, after booting
from it. A general purpose Free DOS boot disk maker is provided on the page for
that purpose. All utilities on www.invircible.com/iv_tools.php are free.
Any luck with cleaning track zero?
Click to expand...

The OP will need the FreeDOS disk for running CleanTrack0 on his drive, if
running under W2K/XP. It's safe to use on NTFS drives (answering an OP's
earlier question).

Regards, Zvi
 
Morgoth Bauglir said:
http://invircible.com/iv_tools.php#CleanTrk says _CleanTrk_ will only run
from true DOS or Win9x; when I tried looking at the disk in DOS, I
couldn't, since DOS doesn't support NTFS.

Will this utility work anyway, regardless of the file system?
Click to expand...

Use the FreeDOS boot disk maker provided on my page and run CleanTrack0 from
floppy, after having booted from. Yet I doubt this is the problem.
I guess if it makes a mess, we could always go back to Plan A (wiping the
entire drive).
Click to expand...

No need to. Suffices to blank the master partition table. RESQDISK /KILL will
do that in a split of a second. If done just once, then it automatically stores
a copy of the current MBR in sector 0/0/63 (CHS). DON'T run CleanTrack0 after
you use RESQDISK /KILL because the previous will blank the MBR backup that
RESQDISK just made. RESQDISK is available from www.invircible.com/resq.php
It'll be about two weeks before we try anything new; the owner wants e-mail
available for that long, and I've told him the concerns about an unlicensed
copy of Windows. He's asked about simply buying a new hard drive, but I
told him that that wouldn't solve his OS problem.
Click to expand...

It's possible that the recovery CD expects to see a blank drive in order to
restore the installation. I've seen that many times. Could be worth trying on
a blank drive.

Regards, Zvi
 
[3 quoted lines suppressed]
Click to expand...

Given the wording on Zvi's site, I wouldn't suggest trying it on a drive with NTFS
partitions.

Any luck with cleaning track zero?

Regards, Dave Hodgins
Click to expand...

Using FreeDOS and cleantrak, I got a message that said success.
The confuser worked fine after the clean.

But uninstalling and reinstalling Jeppview still doesn't work.

Must not have been a track zero problem; I'll try Registry Mechanic before
I wipe. Other than that, I'm out of ideas.

The Jepvview disk installs fine on another confuser, so the install disk is
OK.
 
Using FreeDOS and cleantrak, I got a message that said success.
The confuser worked fine after the clean.
But uninstalling and reinstalling Jeppview still doesn't work.
Click to expand...

Next step would be to use the install to clean the main partition (not the
rescue one). Perhaps they've found a hiding place for their data in
the partition's boot record, or as hidden directory entries.

If that fails, I guess you'll have to follow their advice and wipe the drive - Ouch!!!

Good Luck!

Regards, Dave Hodgins
 
Next step would be to use the install to clean the main partition (not the
rescue one). Perhaps they've found a hiding place for their data in
the partition's boot record, or as hidden directory entries.

If that fails, I guess you'll have to follow their advice and wipe the drive - Ouch!!!
Click to expand...
I wound up wiping the drive.

That worked.

But he's stuck with a copy of the office WinXP.

I really don't feel all that guilty - he was certainly entitled to _A_ copy
of WinXP, just not the one he's now got.
And I've explained the potential consequences to him, including the fact
that he might not be able to update it after SP/2

Shame people don't demand full O/S disks with new computers - but they
don't know enough to do that. Seller tell them they don't need one.

I bought a new computer a few years back, and demanded such a disk.

The seller made me pay full price for the O/S.

Which pretty much leads to to suspect that the copy of the O/S on the
computer he was selling wasn't legitimate, either.

Thanks for your suggestions; I tried all but the last one before wiping.

He had a _bunch_ of viruses and malware, so I can't be sure that JeppView
was the problem.

But I, for one, won't be installing Jeppview on any of my computers.
 
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