The Computer Problems thread!

[Nikki]

Yeah..i think we should have a thread for this. even though i have NO knowledge about computers, i think this thread is where people can come and state their problems, and someone will come along and solve them.

My problem: Several of my music files have dissapeared. and not just random songs. BANDS! songs from certain bands have dissapeared. and some have been renamed and i KNOW i didn't do it. What could have cause this?

[GabrielsThoughts]

Sounds like a system bug my sister's computer got last year, she went to BestBuy and her whole hardrive had to be wiped and the system reinstalled ...

you could read this http://www.ehow.com/how_11818_rid-computer-virus.html  Not a solutiuon.

[thegayhare]

replay how about my problem

when ever I try to veiw the folder I keep my downloaded art in I get an error message and it closes the folder.  It was never a problem till recently.

I can still veiw  the images if I look at them threw my home publishing software but thts a pain

[Rowne]

TGH, that could likely be a malware created issue unless it's a filesystem problem.  There's only way to truly find out.

Start > Run > cmd (or command for older versions) if you're on a Windows machine and by using the word folder instead of directory, I gather that you are.

That'll open up a command shell.  What you need to do now is to navigate to the directory in question.  First make sure you're on the right drive.  If your art directory is on a different drive to the one shown, you'll have to change it.  If it's on, say, drive D, you'll have to type and press enter.

Then you'll need to change the directory.

Let's say that to get to it, you have to go into Documents and Settings from the main drive, then your account name, then My Documents, then Art to get to it (just as an example), you'd have to type the following:

CD "\Documents and Settings\TheGayHare\My Documents\Art"

That's just an example, change things as appropriate.

When there, type dir and press enter to see if the structure still exists.  It might be all kinds of messed up if the file system is kablooyed.  You might even get a constantly recursive folder, where you can go into Art\Art\Art\Art ... that'd be bad.

If it does seem to be intact, the next thing you should do is press tab until one of the images that's associated with windows viewer comes up, JPeGs usually are, so search for a JPG by tabbing away.  When you get a JPG file, press enter.

If the folder is okay, that file should open.  Try browsing about in the Windows image viewer to see whether any of the files are inaccessible.

If everything seems okay then it's likely just some kind of malware that's screwing with you.  I recommend a thourough scan with AdAware, Spybot S&D and a worthy virus scanner, such as Nod32.

If everything isn't okay and it errors out at some point throughout these instructions then you might have a more serious problem there.  Not something we can't fix but still.

I'm probably not the person you wanted help from TGH but I figured that since nobody else had answered ...

[Dakata]

Nyeh. Dakata needs help with his/her scanner. >>

(I just used one of my Mangas for the pictures. XP Shuddap.)

This is what my scanned stuff looks like when I scan it as a grayscale pic. (I circled the crap that's NOT suppose to be there.)
This is what my scanned stuff looks like when I scan it as a colored pic. (...Yah, nothing's circled. Because obviously the blue and red's not suppose to be there. :P)

I don't know how to friggin' fix it. I uninstalled my scanner stuff, reinstalled it.

I screwed around with the settings a little, and that didn't do crap.

...It's weird. When I first had my scanner, it worked fine and didn't add the gray stuff (to grayscale pics) or blue and red (to colored pics)...but then it just suddenly started doing this. For no reason. AT ALL. *Hisssssss*

Scanner I use: EPSON Perfection 3170 Photo :P
OS I use: Windows XP Professional

~~~~~~~~~

...Also, Windows Media Player hates me. :3 In an awesome way. It always likes to screw up when I'm listening to songs that would scare my neighbours' kids. It'll just keep repeating. Over and over again. :3 It's fun watching the neighbour kids freak out a little. :3 "Get ready to diiiiiie-Get ready to diiiiiiie-Get ready to diiiiiie-" *Bwahahahah*

But the computer'll temperarily freeze so I can't turn it down or anything. Any way to fix that? :P It gets kind of annoying after a while. (I might use Winamp or something else...if I'm not too lazy.)

[thegayhare]

Why wouldn't I want you to help out Rowne?

I doubt it's a malware
I keep my protection files up todate and it's a legitimate windows error
Plus I ran adaware, virus scan, registry fixer, and cleaner after I found the problem and non of that worked

The directories seem to be in order,  the error seems to be with windows explorer.

It'll pop up no matter how I veiw the folder,  thimbnails, icons or just file names

[Rowne]

Blast!  Until you'd said the final thing there, I was going to bet money on it being a codec thing.  I've seen windows barf at showing thumbnails of media types because of that.

Hm ... you've provided good information and covered a lot of bases TGH, good for you.  The files can actually be accessed from the command prompt?  No I/O errors or anything?

Might I ask what the error is or could you take a shot of the error as it comes up?  That might be helpful.

---

Ooh!  Here's an interesting one to try ...

Create a new directory with a random name.  Use the command prompt to copy the contents out to the new directory.  Rename your old dir to something else, then rename the new dir to what the old dir was.

You'll need to do all this via the command prompt.  Do any errors pop up in this process?  And which of the directories (both?) are inaccessible after you've done this?

[Nikki]

Sounds like a system bug my sister's computer got last year, she went to BestBuy and her whole hardrive had to be wiped and the system reinstalled ...

you could read this http://www.ehow.com/how_11818_rid-computer-virus.html Not a solutiuon.

oh shit...i can't!! I have too much valuable stuf on my hardrive!!

[Rowne]

Xze, I have something particularly wild for you to try.  Would you be up for trying it?  You'd need to try a program I'm thinking of and you'd need some patience but it's a good way to track down rare or unknown viruses/malware.

----

The reason I'm thinking about this is because the program I'm thinking of is good at snagging processes that try to hide themselves.  When we have a list of all the processes it can gather, we can try to research these processes and find out whether any of them are 'naughty'.

The thing is, the Windows Task Manager won't show all processes if they're trying to hide themselves.

[Nikki]

Xze, I have something particularly wild for you to try.  Would you be up for trying it?  You'd need to try a program I'm thinking of and you'd need some patience but it's a good way to track down rare or unknown viruses/malware.

----

The reason I'm thinking about this is because the program I'm thinking of is good at snagging processes that try to hide themselves.  When we have a list of all the processes it can gather, we can try to research these processes and find out whether any of them are 'naughty'.

The thing is, the Windows Task Manager won't show all processes if they're trying to hide themselves.

Tell me what you have in mind and i'll consult my daddy about it.

[Dakata]

oh s***...i can't!! I have too much valuable stuf on my hardrive!!

Xze, if you have valuable stuff you don't wanna lose, then put it on a CD or a floppy.

...Or you could put all of your important stuff in a zip file and upload it to one of the many file-holding sites like RapidShare or something. I dunno. I usually use my 5 AngelFire account-things to store my crap.

[Nikki]

oh s***...i can't!! I have too much valuable stuf on my hardrive!!

Xze, if you have valuable stuff you don't wanna lose, then put it on a CD or a floppy.

...Or you could put all of your important stuff in a zip file and upload it to one of the many file-holding sites like RapidShare or something. I dunno. I usually use my 5 AngelFire account-things to store my crap.

or i could send everything i have to you XD

[Rowne]

Xze: Okay, what I truly recommend is ProcessGuard.  I'd recommend the full version the most because it has anti-hooking stuffs that provide an even better detection system against bad processes but I can't and won't expect ya to buy anything so the free version will do in a pinch.  I just hope that whatever you have there isn't hiding itself in that particular way.

First of all, install it and reboot.  Then turn of its learning mode and put it on manual.  Reboot then let it run for about half hour, do usual things and set up the processes how you think they should work.  If you see anything suspicious, report back immediately.  If not, after the half hour is up, write down all the processes it's seen and report back here with the list and I'll do some research.

----

Xze, another option is to buy a DVD writer.  Backup everything you have to DVD twice (might take 30 or 40 DVDs but you can get them cheap) and then do your format.  If you want, I can supply you with good, Free burning software that you won't have to pay for.  So if you really did want to format and keep your stuff, that's one way around it.  Just be careful what you put back on your computer after having done the backup and wipe.

[thegayhare]

the command prompt seemed to load everything I tried to okay.  but that might be cause after the error started popping up I had most image types open in picture it publishing

Hmm

here is the error

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/boybnny2/error.jpg
Warning the thumbnails you can see are not sutable for public consumption

Hmm I've tried copying it before,  even to a compleatly differnt drive but not from the comand prompt  I'll try that

[Dakata]

Wow, TGH. Got enough nawty bunny pics?

Nah. I couldn't hold your crap for you, Xze. I freak out when I think I have too much crap on my computer...and I have like 10 GB on it. I haven't even used half of it...yet....And I'd probably accidently delete the stuff anyway. >>;

[Rowne]

TGH, the GDIPlus thing is a big hint!  I'm looking into a few ideas and I'll get back to you.  Basically though, the GDI is the rendering system for Windows, it sounds as though something has made that rendering act a little screwy.  In this case, when you try to open certain graphical applications (even like a Windows folders) that tie into GDI in a very specific way, if the version of GDI doesn't have the instructions that that which is tying into it tries to use, what's tying into it will crash.

I strongly suspect that your GDI file or files have been replaced with older versions but sit tight, I'll find out what I can.

----

... should I be worried that I looked at the error without actually bothering to glance at the images?

Oh furry naughtiness, have I forsaken thee?

[Nikki]

the command prompt seemed to load everything I tried to okay.  but that might be cause after the error started popping up I had most image types open in picture it publishing

Hmm

here is the error

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y45/boybnny2/error.jpg
Warning the thumbnails you can see are not sutable for public consumption

Hmm I've tried copying it before,  even to a compleatly differnt drive but not from the comand prompt  I'll try that

that does the same to me when i open my Yaoi folder 0o and my Final fantasy folder 0o AND MY DRAWINGS FOLDER!!! WTF!!??

TGH, We have a problem...

[thegayhare]

Wow, TGH. Got enough nawty bunny pics?

You can never have anough naughty bunny pics


Ohh My sis thought it might be a folder overload issu since I had over 10,000 images in on directory  but chopping them up didn't seem to work  thats from one of the smaller dir, with only 900 images

Edit Ohh Rowne that might make sense since it was after I re installed windows (after a nasty malware killed my sound drivers, and my modem and networking connections) this started happening...

[Rowne]

TGH and Xze, regarding your error, I'm 90 per cent sure that it's just that some program has replaced files on your system with older versions that XP's most recently updated rendering system isn't happy with.  Problems like these occur all the time.

Could both of you try installing this?

Basically, it's a package that contains the latest GDI+ files, which should help.

[Nikki]

i shall try all that is possible >w<

[thegayhare]

Hmmm I don't think that will work I down;oaded it and unziped it but the included file says it won't work for xp do to xp's file protection

I'll reboot and see though

[Rowne]

Hm, okay.

I'll keep looking for other alternatives.  I figured the best would be to simply replace the faulty GDIPlus file.  If we can't do that too easily, I'll have to keep looking.

----

Considering that I've just remembered that GDIPlus also has a vulnerability for code injection, what we might be seeing here is a naughty image or images which might be trying to inject code badly, failing and thusly causing a crash.  Iono, it's a theory.

If the GDI+ download from Microsoft doesn't work, I think our next best solution is to replace the file manually and yeah, I know how to get around the file-protection of XP to do that, it's not all that hard.

[Jack McSlay]

Nyeh. Dakata needs help with his/her scanner. >>

(I just used one of my Mangas for the pictures. XP Shuddap.)

This is what my scanned stuff looks like when I scan it as a grayscale pic. (I circled the crap that's NOT suppose to be there.)
This is what my scanned stuff looks like when I scan it as a colored pic. (...Yah, nothing's circled. Because obviously the blue and red's not suppose to be there. )

I don't know how to friggin' fix it. I uninstalled my scanner stuff, reinstalled it.

I screwed around with the settings a little, and that didn't do crap.

...It's weird. When I first had my scanner, it worked fine and didn't add the gray stuff (to grayscale pics) or blue and red (to colored pics)...but then it just suddenly started doing this. For no reason. AT ALL. *Hisssssss*

Scanner I use: EPSON Perfection 3170 Photo
OS I use: Windows XP Professional

i've played around the colored piece and here's what I dug up

this is the red channel:

this is the blue channel:

this is the green channel:


and considering that changing settings or reinstalling the drivers didn't work my conclusion is 
the red channel of the scanner is fried

scanners are odd tho... sometimes they show up problems and sometimes they don't. I think it depends on the heat in the sensors. you could try powering up the scanner right before scanning to see what happens. I highly doubt fixing the sensor is something you can have done on repair shops, unfortunately...

[ElectroMotive]

I have some scanner problems of my own. I have a scanner that my computer's won't recognize. it won't show up in the system profiler.
It's an HP Scanjet 5200C

[Dakata]

:zombiekun2 the red channel of the scanner is fried :zombiekun2

So how could it get fried? :P

And what do you mean by powering it up, Jackie? :P *Is uber-sleepy and cannot use his/her brain*

[thegayhare]

well the install program made me  choose a location so I went out and just copied it to the location.  I backed up the old gdi and coppied the new one in and rebooted. 

And well it works now... That'll teach me to read the instruction Jeez

*giggles*

thanks Rowne

[Rowne]

No problem, TGH, glad to be of service.  I honestly figured it was something like that.  Windows rarely errors out these days and if it isn't malware (and you were convinced it wasn't so I believed ya) then it's usually down to something more simple and the answer almost always lies in the error and half the time it's due to incompatible files.

You should see some of the GTK hell I've gone through because of all the different GTK applications I use in Windows and many of them expect many different versions of GTK.  That's fine of course unless a GTK file finds its way into \Windows\System\ which overrides all the others.  Pain the arse, I tells ya.  Still worth it though.  The way of the computer, I s'pose!

----

Oh, footnote!

It might revert to the way it was when you reboot next, this is because Windows keeps a backup of old files, in some cases, broken old files.

The way around this is to also replace the gdiplus.dll that's in \dllcache within the \system32 directory.  That way, even after a reboot it'll keep the good file.  Just figured I'd give ya a heads up in case it mysteriously reverts.

[Damaris]

Okay, my computer has decided recently that deselecting windows would be fun.  (You know, they go inactive and then you have to click on them in order to scroll, etc.)

I've run Microsoft Spyware (no result), and I've dumped my cookies and cache (both Firefox and IE).  Is there something else I should be doing.  I haven't changed any major settings recently, and this has started happening in the last 36 hours.

[Gornemant]

Okay, my computer has decided recently that deselecting windows would be fun.  (You know, they go inactive and then you have to click on them in order to scroll, etc.)

I've run Microsoft Spyware (no result), and I've dumped my cookies and cache (both Firefox and IE).  Is there something else I should be doing.  I haven't changed any major settings recently, and this has started happening in the last 36 hours.

is your windows up to date? (SP2 and the rest of the security updates?)
whatever tools aways handy for window$
http://www.xp-antispy.org/
A-Squared free
might as well also try ad-aware and spybot

[Aridas]

Okay, my computer has decided recently that deselecting windows would be fun. (You know, they go inactive and then you have to click on them in order to scroll, etc.)

I've run Microsoft Spyware (no result), and I've dumped my cookies and cache (both Firefox and IE). Is there something else I should be doing. I haven't changed any major settings recently, and this has started happening in the last 36 hours.

Microsoft Antispyware is old. If you're gonna be using that kind of program, at least download Windows Defender. I never even looked at it so I still can't guarantee it. I find other programs like counterspy and other such brands work better at getting rid of spyware.

But none of that matters, because if your problem is what it seems like, you need some virus protection. try AVG or if you're so inclined, Kaspersky Anti-Virus or BitDefender.

I'm not sure if it could be that other windows are stealing focus though, but there's a setting hidden somewhere in windows to fix that, too. Can't remember where.

Hope anything I said helps... if it doesn't, then I suck.