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I'm stumped...Someone PLease help

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by dbld

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I am presently working on an intel based 233mmx machine that was on a home network. the other 2 machines were infected with the NYB virus which I easily cleaned. This one however is a mess and I'm stumped! As I said it's a 233mmx with 2 hard drives one WD 4.3 gig and one Maxtor 6.4 both running ez drive to oversome the bios limitation. The problem I'm presented with is this, if I let the machine do a normal boot sequence I am dumped to a c prompt and unable to type I get the message "configuration file too long remove some drivers from your config.sys and restart and then it asks for the location of the command.com. If I try to boot from a floppy it only boots partially and freezes. I have tested thje base memory and it seems ok, I have swapped ram chips (it has 128 meg 72 pin simms (4 32's) and that didnt help. I tried to load MIcroscope and it locks part of the way through as if there is a memopry error. By the way, I can use the keyboard to enter the bios but once the machine boots I cannot type. I have also tried disconnecting the boot drive and that has done me no good either. Any suggestions?? Thanks in advance!

18 replies

by dcosgrove

There are several possibilities, but one strikes me. I had the same trouble with a machine infected with stealthboot c. I tried botting from floppies and nothing helped. Ater several hours and half my hair I realized that every floppy I had used had become infected, I always write protect floppies now. I had to clean it with a program called ivinit.exe from inviricible. It was a free down load. Then I had to low level format, repartion and reformat the drive. All data was lost, many random entries in autoexec and cnfig looked like wingdings font (hence the file too long errors I suppose) Hope you get it back up and running.

by mjchekal

I was thinking along the same lines as the previous writer bu more in the area of a virus in the MBR and since the current boot utitlity is running over it that may have aslo been currupted. If there is nothing on this device I would take the disk containg the orginal EZ-Drive and re-lowlevel format those drives and start from scratch. If there is something there I would get a Known good diskette and boot with that, clean the unit and get all the data off and rebuild it

Hope this helps

by dbld

When I try to boot with the ez drive utilitiy it loads to the splash screen and then freezes. Thgis was beginning to make me think I memory problem too although as I said I switched the ram out and had the same problem, I ran a diagnostic on thebase memory and it checks out ok. I am now about bald and last week I had a full head of hair!

by dbld

I did use a clean boot diskette, one I created and new was clean. I agree it sounds like a problem in the MBR however I can't low level format without being able to boot from a floppy. Kind of a catch 22!

by csmith

I ran into this problem one time, and the write protect switch on the floppy drive was bad.
The result was that every floppy became infected and I could not clean the hard drives.
This machine also had two HDs.
Fortunately I carry an extra floppydrive with me.
(This was an on site repair.)
The test is easy.
Check one of the floppies that you used in the problem PC.
If it is infected, the PC has a bad write switch.
Regards , Chris

by dbld

Thanks Chris but I did this too. I thought maybe I had a bad floppy so I tested it in another machine and it was still clean and booted fine. I'm beginning to wonder if I have multiple problems here. I have even disconnected both hard drives and still cant get a boot from a floppy, I swapped the floppy and stil have the same problem. Does anybody wanna buy a paper weight?

by ksearch

Why not put a known good bootable hard drive in this machine. Disconnect the bad one and confirm you can boot. If you have issues there, then you know the virus has gotten to the bios..Deal with one problem at time, proving what you know each step of the way. Once you can boot off the known good drive, put the bad one back in as a slave drive, and working from the good drive, deal with the bad drive (reformatting, etc.) Deal with one variable at a time. Booting is first priority, then the drive, then the floppy issue later. Good luck, and let us know how you get on.
kel.

by csmith

If you have tried booting on a known good floppy with both hard drives disconnected, and the BIOS has been told that there are no hard drives present, and the PC froze in the boot, there are two possibilities.
The most common is that you have moveda cable during the work in the case, and one of the cable connectors has a problem.
This is not a quick test because you have to unplug each cable from the motherboard, make sure the BIOS is not trying to install the device, and try to boot on the floppy.
I would start with the IDE cables, then USB, etc.
If it's not a cable problem it can also be a marginal card. I have had these boot on floppy freezes from cards that had the contacts improperly place at the factory.
If the card was not just so in the slot, the contacts of the motherboard and the card would not make properly. I would check the network first, then the sound, etc.
This definitely sounds like a hardware problem mixed in with the virus.
Regards, Chris

by paul d. masley

This definately sounds like a bios virus. Try this simple cure. Disconnect the power cable and remove the battery. Find the bios jumpers, mark their location and remove them. Remove all cards except for the video. Disconnect the hard drive(s)and cd, but leave the floppy intact. Get a good Win98 Boot disk. Let this box set for at least 30 minutes. Reset the bios pins, but do not connect the battery. Hook up the keyboard, mouse and monitor. Insert the floppy and start the box. If it starts you have completed on problem. Shut down and hook only the WD hardrive. Do not use EZBios to start the drive. FDISK the drive, Partition the same using whatever scheme you want. A 233 based machine should recognize the hard drives stated but make sure that the bios states AUTO. After your partition, reboot to set the drive letters and format the drive. Install your slave drive, do the same. Only after installation of the drives and getting a good clean boot several time, then I add the cards. Before installation of Win98, reformat that c drive at least five times. It seem that after several formats 98 installs better. Do not forget the boot and shutdown patches.

Good Luck.

Paul

by paul d. masley

Forgot one thing, If you get the harddrive to boot after the partition fix, reinstall the battery or the bios will not remember any changes that you do. Sorry about this.

by tlippert

Ran into a similar problem last week. The computer would only boot part way then give wierd errors. As unlikely as it is it turned out to be the CPU. PII 400. replaced the CPU and the computer booted fine.I also tried the virus route but could neverget to the dos prompt to start a scan.

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