Shut Down

[Naz]

I got dsl at my house FINALLY. When I installed it I got 5 viruses. So I finally reformatted and then put a firewall on and it has worked fine.. No viruses. Well at least Norton hasn't told me about one. I have kept Norton up to date along with the firewall.

However my computer seems to shut down on it's own. I am wondering if when I got all of these viruses it damaged something? Maybe the memory or the hard drive? Is that possible?

I have windows xp.

Thanks for your help

[LeftCoast]

Yo naz,

When you reformatted, did you wipe (write zeros to) the drive, or just reformat/reinstall the OS?

Especially when I've picked-up viruses, I wipe the drive with Killdisk ( www.killdisk.com ). If you don't wipe the drive, some corrupted files that remain MAY be reinstalled with the "new" OS.

Also, when does it shut down, while your using it or after it's been idle a while? If it's the latter, perhaps you just need to adjust the default power-saving options...


Also, Spybot search and destroy and Spywareblaster are nice free programs that eliminate spyware/dialers.

[Naz]

It happens while I use it so it isn't a sleep mode.

I just installed spybot on it last night but then it shut off again so I now have Ad aware, spybot and Spyblaster on it.

How did I format.. I went to dos typed in format C:

[Bill in SD, CA]

A boot sector virus may not be deleted during a regular format.

Suggest you use killdisk or the manufacturer's diagnostic disk to write zeroes to the drive.

Bill

[Naz]

Thank you.. I will check out the site.

[Shifter2101]

may i also suggest for future use...

AdAware

and

ZoneAlarm

[bullgator]

Sounds like the blaster worm is still hanging around.
After you zero out the drive format it in ntfs not fat32, and get your ms updates immediately after you install your drivers.

[John Prophet]

I always put the blaster patch on BEFORE I ever go online...I keep the patch on a cd and apply it before I hook to my network...cuz I know of people who have gotten nailed just in the time it took to try to go to windows update site!! lol

[someone16]

Yea with broadband you can't beat it to install the updates. When you do a fresh install you need to unplug the ethernet and set up a firewall (window's firewall is fine) and virus scanner.

[LeftCoast]

Man, I just realized that my response for @ 10 of the last 20 problems I've answered has been to zero the drive with Killdisk.

I don't work for Killdisk, honestly...