putting together new computer for friend

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 6:27 pm

they still have that section for me, but i am looking at the site for Canada, be sure you haven't gone to the international site. Tho computer suppliers do change their sites often to keep up with new tech.

Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 9:00 pm

I think I came in at the end of a series of specials. They'll come out with more but is just hit at the right time of everything going wrong. You know how them things go.

I'm trying to put in another drive in my computer so my friend has something decent to use until I can get new parts for a new computer. Just not to sound too confusing - I'm trying to build a new computer for myself, but my friend wants a new computer too, so I'm trying to do both. I'm also taking out my infected drive and putting in another drive so my friend has some kind of machine to work with. I'll be borrowing my friend Jeff's brother's old machine until I get situated My friend, Miriam is priority right now. Get her situated with a good (new) machine, then I'll worry about getting me situated with one. Now I guess that makes everythng as clear as mud. Laughing

I get the drive reformated and windows reinstalled and before I can say "jack rabbit" I end up with another virus. I deal with that one by wiping the whole drive and starting over, but I'm running into one problem after another. Service pack 3 wasn't installing right, internet exployer 8 wasn't installing right. I think I got the order mixed up. I finally got internet exployer 8 installed and I can't believe how slow this machine is. It wasn't that slow when I had the virus, and everything keeps locking up. I haven't even installed anything but microsoft downloads now. Every service pack 3 I access on microsoft site keeps getting rejected. My computer keeps saying it's invalid. It's enought to make me want to pull my hair out (a bald woman - not a good look for me Laughing

). My friend finally gave me a working copy of service pack 3. (Turns out he had it all along but his computer was messing up so much that he couldn't get at it until now. We're just having some kind of luck with computers lately - all bad.)

I don't know what happened. That drive was always good.

I'm using Jeff's switcher to use 2 computers at once on the same monitor, keyboard and mouse. I forget what it's called. Is it possible for a computer virus to transfer from one computer to another via that conector thing-a-ma-jig?

I'm just hoping this all works long enough to get a decent one put together.

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 8:12 am

highly unlikely virus will move through a monitor/keyboard switch, unless the NSA planted a special keyboard on you Cool

dont worry about that happening, or youll end up like me Laughing

the SP3 from ms website probably doesnt like the CD key for you install, it might be blacklisted as pir8 ed ... that would explain why a backed up copy from ages ago works, cuz its not got the newest blacklist of keys...
BTW keys and serials are touchy around here, PM me if you want to talk about anything your curious about.

im wondering how old/used/abused the drive is..it can just be a failure of hardware rather than virus. Have you low level formatted these drives?
that is supposed to wipe them totally clean. if you dont do that you can leave things on drive that will screw up as they were for a different install

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:02 pm

My friend, Jeff, has me going in circles. Everything he tells me is oppisite of what everyone here says. I wouldn't be able to get this far this fast learning about computers without this site.

I wiped the drive with a program called minitool drive wipe 5.0 on a 3 wipe setting. My friend told me not to use windows program to wipe it.

My drive that I took out of the machine I'm going to deal with it later. Try to salvage as much as I can from it (I have a lot of stuff) before it's dealt with. That won't be for a while. I don't know what the deal is with Jeff's brother's computer. I think Jeff was using it to "tinker" with.

I think the drive is about 4 years old, but it may be newer - he switched out my computer and his with new drives a couple years ago (lost a lot of stuff with that), so he might have did it to the computer I got this drive from too. I'm not sure. I was never in the loop about those things and forget asking questions.

The computer I took the drive out of had been our back up before the CPU got messed up. I had a couple thinks on it but he used the drive mostly as his back up. I thought it was a good drive. I know it crashed a couple times, but no more then the rest of them. If it crashed more then that I wasn't told. He had it on the switch so half the time I didn't know what computer he was working on. Beyond that I don't know what else he did to it.

I don't know what low level formatt is. I used that program to wipe the drive, then I used the windows XP disc to re-install. If there was supose to be a step in between I didn't know about it.

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 4:24 pm

After installing XP do this in this order:

1) Goto device Manager, see what drivers are not installed and get them from the manufacters site, if you got drivers from anywhere else reformat, reinstall and start over.

2) Install missing drivers that you got from manufacturer.

3) Install service pack 1a, then 3; see instructions here

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322389

Microsoft wrote:

Windows XP Service Pack 1a (SP1a) must be preinstalled before you install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3)

4) Goto windows update and install all available updates.

Do not install anything else until you have completed these steps.

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 5:12 pm

cbilljones wrote:

After installing XP do this in this order:

1) Goto device Manager, see what drivers are not installed and get them from the manufacters site, if you got drivers from anywhere else reformat, reinstall and start over.

I have ASUS disc - VGA driver (v506). It has Microsoft directX 9.0, ASUS Enhansed driver 1.26, ASUS SmartDoc 4.79, ASUS video security online 3.5.1.0 and 2 game programs. Also, ASUS NVIDIA NFORCE4 SERIES (REV.159.06). I've already installed all that. I assume when you say "if you got dravers from anywhere else reformat" you're referring to other web sites, not those discs.

cbilljones wrote:

3) Install service pack 1a, then 3; see instructions here

We have an official windows sp2 that I installed. The pack 1a will not install with sp2 installed. When I tried to install the copy of sp3 my friend had it installed fine, just not the on-line versions.

So, would you say I did it wrong by using sp2 first.

Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 5:17 pm

cinvowell wrote:

So, would you say I did it wrong by using sp2 first.

No, SP3 requires min SP1a, if your install disc is more up to date thats fine. However your driver disk is surely ancient, you should be getting latest drivers from the manufacturer site.

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 1:29 am

cbilljones - My disc is about 3 or 4 years old. I will start downloading the newest drivers.

LORD! GARTH! - My brain's working now. I think when I installed windows it formated the C drive. I used the longer version rather than the quick version. When instalation was done, I right clicked on "my computer", clicked on "manage", clicked on "disc management". There I was able to format the second partition. I forget if I used the quick version or the long version. With stuff like that I usually use long versions, they're more through. Is any of that what you said low level formatting?

I'm trying to do every thing I can to minimize the chance of this computer getting a virus before I give it to my friend. I didn't hook up my old drive (which is probably the mistake I did last time, but all her information was on that drive), or any of my sticks. When I transfered everything from the computer to a stick, I tried to put as few of instalation downloads as possible on it with all her documents and bookmarks. I won't connect my stick until I have a good program to scan it throughly.

What's the best program to do a through job on sticks and externals? Is there programs that specialize in external memory of any kind?

I know this might sound like overkill, but I'm tired and would like to give her this computer this year. Laughing

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:48 am

its probly ok with the "long" format. i usually use a running computer to "FDISK" the drive in question, and it will let you destroy partitions, lowlevel format the drive, and recreate a partition. the fdisk thing is a command prompt app (a "DOS" app ) there are other apps for this as well that will allow you to flood the drive with 1's or 0's so any residue that might exist is definately written over and destroyed. next is to get a handle on the external drives, and sticks as you could have a virus (or a piece of one that brings a virus back) when you plug it in.
something to consider is old parts or damaged parts _can_ operate incorrectly and look like virus activity but doesnt often happen

Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:05 pm

What's the best virus programs for plugins and externals? I really don't want to reinfect the drive after going through all this to get rid of the virus.

This is the first time I've heard of "FDISK". How is it used and at what point in the process is it used?

(edited 1:24 am)

I looked up the site for ASUS drivers. This site

http://support.asus.com/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en&m=A8N5X&p=1&s=21

I don't know how to tell which items I need to download or do I download everything? Confused

I opened up computer management, but I'm a little lost here, trying to match things. Confused

I see now that I did quite a number of things wrong the last time I installed windows.