In Tim <
[email protected]> had this to say:
My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
I can't run sfc. All I get is a dos window for a fraction of a
second, then nothing.
One other clue. I tried an experiment and unplugged the LAN
connection. The locking up problem appeared to go away. Any thoughts?
Curiouser and curiouser... (I'm glad that you've not lost this thread in the
web interface by the way.)
Okay, let's start with the basics. Do you have a firewall installed and
properly configured? Here's a decent site that you can go to and check to
see how well it's configured:
Security Scan - Sygate Online Services (sos):
http://scan.sygatetech.com/
You mentioned that you unplugged the LAN and the freezing stopped. How is
the LAN connected to your computer? Is it USB? Often times people will have
problems with USB to broadband connections which is why I ask. The simple
solution at that point would be to heading down to your local department
store and grabbing a simple 10/100 Ethernet Card and tossing it into your
computer though you may wish to grab a straight cable while you're there if
you don't already own one.
Not being able to run system file check implies, to me, that there's been a
serious compromize to your system and that there's still a possibility of
you being infected with malware or even the removal process has rendered
parts of your system unusable. Seeing as you're probably on a broadband
connection (most dial-up users don't actually use a LAN to connect to the
internet though I suppose some still do. Err... Wait... I do! But I'm pretty
much unique in that and couldn't get broadband here if I wanted to yet with
the exception of satellite connections with fair usage policies I'm not
willing to subject myself to.) This leads me to a new question, can you use
the command (it's just like this) Start > Run > "sfc /scannow" without the
quotes in safe mode without networking? If you can then that tells us that
there's a file loaded in your system that's still preventing you from using
your system effectively. That would then mean that a trip to HijackThis
forums would be your next best bet. (Those forums don't go here, instead
look here for more information:
http://forum.aumha.org/viewforum.php?f=30 and take a gander as there's too
much to cover in here.)
Let's see what happens with that next. Sometimes after cleaning up a PC that
has been infected with malware and there's still portions of the system that
won't run (like your system file checker at this point) you need to do a
repair installation which only means that you'll lose your updates but
you'll still have your files and your applications installed. In this case
I'd recommend using HijackThis to create a log and posting it (be sure to
follow the rules for posting the logs) at the above forum. It's free and a
nice site owned by one of the MVPs and visited by many of the other MVPs.
Galen
--
"And that recommendation, with the exaggerated estimate of my ability
with which he prefaced it, was, if you will believe me, Watson, the
very first thing which ever made me feel that a profession might be
made out of what had up to that time been the merest hobby."
Sherlock Holmes