Okay, where do I start...
Virus, Rootkit, or Hardware Issue? You tell me, because this is something I have never seen before.
I just built a brand new computer over Christmas vacation using parts ordered from newegg.com. I put everything together and there were no problems. I even used an anti-static bracelet to prevent any minor damage coming back to bite me later. I installed Windows XP Pro x64bit edition SP2 and updated it to the latest. Now, aside from a random cold reboots and no blue screen to show for, I hadn't noticed any real problems at all especially since windows never complained of those random reboots.
Note
- I find it worthy to mention that I have overclocked my amd athlon 64 xp2 5000+ black edition processor from 2.6 to 2.8 ghz(my goal was 3.1 as I heard my processor is very stable up to 3.3 but I hadn't gotten the chance to yet).
- I also think it is necessary to mention that I use Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0.125 and I've scanned many times for viruses as well as root kits but found nothing.
It is now late january (so, a month or so after installing xp x64) and due to incompatibility between xp x64 bit edition and my favorite recording software I have decided to switch to windows xp pro 32bit. This is when the problem first became noticable. My plan was to resize my C: drive partition by unallocating the remaining free space, installing windows xp 32bit on that, and then moving all the files off the x64bit install on to the 32. I booted from my Partition Magic cd and attempted to resize. It got to maybe 14% and then stopped and reported an error with the partition (the error message now isn't important because I will go over it later.) I rebooted into windows and everything worked fine, so I ran chkdsk and not only did it take forever, but it found errors while checking indexes and needed to be ran in /f mode or else it couldn't continue. So I ran chkdsk /f and rebooted. It found a few problems with the indexes and fixed them. So I tried partition magic AGAIN. This time resizing it got to 99% and gave me an error having to do with lost clusters. I scanned the hard drive from inside partition magic and tryed to fix the lost clusters but there were too many so I just rebooted. This time windows booted up fine again and the changes made to the partition size in partition magic worked just fine. Worried about parts of my hard disk being corrupted I ran chkdsk /r /f and rebooted. This is when it found many errors while checking indexes, fixed them, and then while checking security descriptors I got these messages: "Replacing invalid security id with default security id for file..." for what appeared to be every file on my hard drive ( maybe 50,000 or so.) I let it finish and when I got into windows nothing worked. No start menu, couldn't use the programs in the control panel, internet explorer crashed and firefox reported to page displayed on attempting to use the internet. Luckily I was already planning to reinstall windows so I did so.
I installed windows xp sp2 32bit on the unallocated space I had just freed, and hoping that the problem was associated with maybe just the 64bit edition of windows xp I rebuilt the system reinstalling all my programs and drivers. I also did frequent chkdsks on this new partition as well as the old and it ran much faster than I had seen before and discovered no problems. However, my antivirus did find a malware virus and a trojan on my hard drive and removed them. Then, last night while I was making a beat in Reason 4 ( a sick one too), I had my first random reboot. I freaked out because I had a feeling this was the same old problem reoccurring. I booted into safemode and ran chkdsk and just as I thought... I found errors similar to before now after that random reboot. Attempting to rule out the possibility of a memory issue, I ran memtest 86+ all night and it successfully made it through 10 passes, so I know it's not a hardware issue. What could it be... a rootkit? A virus?
PS: I have made some logs of chkdsk as well as some system driver information and I will post them in a little.
Virus, Rootkit, or Hardware Issue? You tell me, because this is something I have never seen before.
I just built a brand new computer over Christmas vacation using parts ordered from newegg.com. I put everything together and there were no problems. I even used an anti-static bracelet to prevent any minor damage coming back to bite me later. I installed Windows XP Pro x64bit edition SP2 and updated it to the latest. Now, aside from a random cold reboots and no blue screen to show for, I hadn't noticed any real problems at all especially since windows never complained of those random reboots.
Note
- I find it worthy to mention that I have overclocked my amd athlon 64 xp2 5000+ black edition processor from 2.6 to 2.8 ghz(my goal was 3.1 as I heard my processor is very stable up to 3.3 but I hadn't gotten the chance to yet).
- I also think it is necessary to mention that I use Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0.125 and I've scanned many times for viruses as well as root kits but found nothing.
It is now late january (so, a month or so after installing xp x64) and due to incompatibility between xp x64 bit edition and my favorite recording software I have decided to switch to windows xp pro 32bit. This is when the problem first became noticable. My plan was to resize my C: drive partition by unallocating the remaining free space, installing windows xp 32bit on that, and then moving all the files off the x64bit install on to the 32. I booted from my Partition Magic cd and attempted to resize. It got to maybe 14% and then stopped and reported an error with the partition (the error message now isn't important because I will go over it later.) I rebooted into windows and everything worked fine, so I ran chkdsk and not only did it take forever, but it found errors while checking indexes and needed to be ran in /f mode or else it couldn't continue. So I ran chkdsk /f and rebooted. It found a few problems with the indexes and fixed them. So I tried partition magic AGAIN. This time resizing it got to 99% and gave me an error having to do with lost clusters. I scanned the hard drive from inside partition magic and tryed to fix the lost clusters but there were too many so I just rebooted. This time windows booted up fine again and the changes made to the partition size in partition magic worked just fine. Worried about parts of my hard disk being corrupted I ran chkdsk /r /f and rebooted. This is when it found many errors while checking indexes, fixed them, and then while checking security descriptors I got these messages: "Replacing invalid security id with default security id for file..." for what appeared to be every file on my hard drive ( maybe 50,000 or so.) I let it finish and when I got into windows nothing worked. No start menu, couldn't use the programs in the control panel, internet explorer crashed and firefox reported to page displayed on attempting to use the internet. Luckily I was already planning to reinstall windows so I did so.
I installed windows xp sp2 32bit on the unallocated space I had just freed, and hoping that the problem was associated with maybe just the 64bit edition of windows xp I rebuilt the system reinstalling all my programs and drivers. I also did frequent chkdsks on this new partition as well as the old and it ran much faster than I had seen before and discovered no problems. However, my antivirus did find a malware virus and a trojan on my hard drive and removed them. Then, last night while I was making a beat in Reason 4 ( a sick one too), I had my first random reboot. I freaked out because I had a feeling this was the same old problem reoccurring. I booted into safemode and ran chkdsk and just as I thought... I found errors similar to before now after that random reboot. Attempting to rule out the possibility of a memory issue, I ran memtest 86+ all night and it successfully made it through 10 passes, so I know it's not a hardware issue. What could it be... a rootkit? A virus?
PS: I have made some logs of chkdsk as well as some system driver information and I will post them in a little.