Security → Is my son's PC infected, or what?

My son's Dell PC (running WinXP-Home-SP2) has developed a major problem. The BIOS is not recognizing his hard drive or his CD-R. When the system starts up, it says something to the effect that "no hard drives were detected - hit F1 to continue or F2 to enter setup". I hit F2, entering the BIOS, setting everything to 'auto-detect' and rebooted, but the same thing happens again!

So on the next reboot I hit F1 to continue and it finds and boots the C-drive, but the CD-R remains disabled. I checked Device Mgr and there are no apparent errors that I can see, but the problem persists on every bootup!

This 'smells' like his system is infected, but a virus scan (from within Windows) reports "no malware found". I'd like to do a pre-boot scan, but as mentioned, his CD-R isn't being recognized. Any suggestions?

It smells of flakey hardware to me.

Thanks for the reply, but can you be more specific?

There are a few possibilities. The CMOS itself (unlikely), cables, the IDE controller on the motherboard, the drives (unlikely, since one is being detected intermittently and the other not at all) or the power supply.

Whatever it may be, if the machine is still under warranty with Dell, let them take care of it. Opening it up to troubleshoot the issue yourself may void your warranty.

If it's not under warranty, go for it. Open it up, replace the IDE cables. That's the easiest thing to try first. Power up and see if the behavior continues. After that, I'd start suspecting the power supply, and begin disconnecting drives.

It's long out of warranty, so that's not an option. Also, if it were a loose or bad cable, why would F1 always result in it finding the hdd followed by Windows starting up?

I take it you don't believe this could be caused by a bootup virus/trojan?

Smells like bad IDE controller to me. I've had that promblem many times on many different machines.

If there any way to test for a bad controller (other than replacing the motherboard)?

No, I doubt it was caused by any software on the PC. This sounds like purely a hardware issue, especially since it's flakey. If it were caused by malware (and such destructive malware is rarely seen these days) I don't think you'd get it to boot at all.

you can try and run a diagnostic util for that hd from the manufacturer's site to satisfy yourself it is broken and then proceed and purchase a new one.

Cudni

A diagnostic utility wouldn't be able to tell the difference between controller/cable issues and hard drive issues. The only way to isolate that would be to put the drive in another computer. Windows XP being picky about its hardware, it wouldn't boot in a different machine. It'd have to be a second drive, which you could then test.

This could be as simple as a battery - the little cmos backup battery - costs about $5 at Radio Shack. Try replacing that (its on the motherboard) Could be its not saving the hardware config

The CMOS battery - I didn't think of that - wouldn't that would be ironic!

But if the battery was going bad, wouldn't the first sign be with the real-time clock?

You should be able to get a PCI IDE controller card from any local computer shop or online for relatively little money.

Except that after you boot - time may be updating via NTP

Is time set right in BIOS??

Don't know, but I'll check that out when I get home from work this eve.

A bad CMOS battery shouldn't be the likely culprit in this scenario, unless he is actually shutting down the PC after setting up the drives in the BIOS. If he's doing a warm reboot then power isn't being removed from the CMOS chip and the battery never comes into play.
Nevertheless, it might be worth a shot to replace the battery anyway since it's cheap and depending on the age of the machine may be due anyway.

And before you do anything else, you might want to crack the case open and make sure the IDE cable is completely seated in the motherboard socket.

If it has a floppy drive disconnect it. Those things will screw ya up real good when they decide to stop working. Then re-seat everything wires memory and processor. A little corrosion from warming up and cooling off will cause things to get flaky to. And try starting it with just the hard drive first if it works connect the cd etc.

Also check the mother board for bad cap's... those little "towers" that stick up from the mobo. If the top is popped out at all, (or acid is leaking out) they are bad. These being bad can cause some weird stuff to happen. I have seen them cause random reboots, slowness, and much more.

It sure sounds like a loose/bad cable to me. If you have another computer at home, just swap cables and try to boot.
That may answer your question.

What's the model number? What is the Dell tag number?

Only by running a diagnostic util. there are many out there. Your best bet would be one that can run off a floppy since your CD drive never gets recognized.

CatSnak, do u know of any that can run off a floppy?

I'm at work, but I think it's a Dimension 4550 -- P4 2.66GHz, 40GB HDD, 512MB RAM, running WinXP Home (SP2).

Intermitant boot drive detection failure can as many have hinted at be bad hardware but heres a simpler cause easyer to fix to.

Boot up the comp and make sure his hd has a at least say 5 gigs free space. Also check for dust build up on the drives and infact the entire system. Make sure theres no dust on the extra pins on the hard drive cd roms etc for the master cable select and slave jumpers.

Dust can contain many 1000s of things 2 of those that can cause isues are skin cells yep that stuff you have all over you and 2 metalic dusts. But regardless of the make up of the dust in your home it can all cary a static charge that can be enough to short those jumpers turnign your secoundary master cdrom or slave cd rom in to a very confused slave and master all at the same time. This will cause a failure to detect the drive obviously.

Next most common cause loose ide cable next bad ide cable. Final are varius hardware failures. IDE control hd going bd cd rom going bad psu that just dont got enough oomf to power the cd rom hd etc any more. And the list goes on.

If it wer mine I would swap HD's but I have a funny feeling photobug is fishing here.

con

Usually if it is freezing during IDE detection you should unplug one device at a time, starting with the cd roms.

Start your computer in safe mode [using the F8 key method]
Reference: »service1.symantec.com/SU ··· out=prod

To use the F8 key to start Windows XP in Safe mode:
Restart the computer.
Some computers have a progress bar that refers to the word BIOS. Others may not let you know what is happening.
As soon as the BIOS loads, begin tapping the F8 key on your keyboard. Do so until the Windows Advanced Options menu appears.
If you begin tapping the F8 key too soon, some computers display a "keyboard error" message. If this happens, restart the computer and try again.
Using the arrow keys on the keyboard, select Safe mode and then press Enter.

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Safe mode lets you turn off unnecessary computer programs so that you can find the cause of a problem. When you are done, you can turn on the programs again.

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Are you able to start Windows in Safe Mode?

how much memory do you have? if you have two modules of 256, then remove them and place it in the next slotfarthestfrom the cpu or what ever you mb config is.Check to see if it boots up this time play with each one to see if you have a bad memory module