[pitanka]

hi. it is because of you. again, thank you very, very much.
now i have to try to find out how to fix the HD that i toke out. maybe a virus. where should i go and look for help? tnx

[philthomas]

You're welcome.

If you think the drive has viruses/malware on it, but is physically sound, you could just hook it up to your PC and format it. This will kill anything that is on it and you can then re-use the drive, as you wish.

Alternatively you could put it in an External USB2 Enclosure and do the same thing.

If there is Data on the drive, that you want to rescue, either method above would allow this, but I would strongly recommend scanning the whole drive, with a good, up-to-date Virus program and scan again for Spyware, with something like SuperAntiSpyware (free edition) before copying any data/files to your new drive, otherwise you could well infect your new drive.

[pitanka]

Oh, thank you very much.
Yes, I just did that - it went into an enclosure and work fine. I thought the problem is mechanical, but it looks like it is a virus. What happening is: after loading the XP, immediately for a fraction of a second appears a blue screen with some message, but impossible to read and pc turn off and restart by itself. I managed to get to safety mode, but couldn't get a restoration point - that does not work. I managed to copy a lots of data and spread it wherever I found room in external and internal slave HD. Mistake, eh? Now the virus could be anywhere. Yes, I think I will format the HD. I just want to get the websides from the bookmark and my favorites, but cannot find them and I do not know how. And also how to get my email from the Outlook Express prior to the day I changed the HD. Now I will try to scan with SuperAntiSpyware, if I found where to get the free edition. Any free edition of of up-to-date Virus program? Oh, well, you did a lot for me and I appreciate it, so if you are tired of me, it is okay, if you take a rest. Thanks a lot again and again.

[philthomas]

You can grab SuperAntiSpyware here (free edition).
AVG AntiVirus (free edition, not Premium) from here (use the link at lower left to download direct from AVG)
Both are good at what they do and much better than some commercial offerings.

In view of your situation, it would be a good idea to do a full scan of all drives.
Most nasties are from email attachments or infected.exe files, so as long as you haven't run anything on the new set up, you will probably be ok.

Your IE Favourite in XP, should be stored here- C:\Documents and Settings\[USERNAME]\Favorites.

Hope this helps

[philthomas]

Recovering your emails from Outlook Express is a bit more complicated, due to the way OE stores them.
Normally it would be a simple task to transfer them from an old PC to a new one, as the options to export/import are within OE itself. Obviously in your case this is not possible.

The files are stored as .dbx in the following location :
C:\Documents and Settings\<User>\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{GUID}\Microsoft\Outlook Express - (GUID is a Global Unique Identifier Number).
If you want to read up more on it go here

You can copy over the .dbx files to your new Drive, but if you try to put these into the corresponding folders manually, you will likely corrupt your new Outlook Express installation.

I guess it depends on how much you need them and how much time you want to spend, but you may be better off just keeping them as an archive somewhere on your new drive and access them, one at a time, as you need them.
They will open in OE, but the process is a bit clumbsy.

Hope this helps

[pitanka]

Hello philthomas.
i' ve been silent for a while, just scanning and keep scanning, and still scanning with avg for viruses. next task - scanning for spyware. when done and finish, i will post results. approximately 10 days from now. i did not run away. i will never forget your help. thank you, thank you, thank you.