Member Avatar for joshSCH

I've had a very strange incident with xp pro x64 today. I've had it for over a year, and today It kept crashing, and eventually wouldn't boot at all. Okay... So, I use Ubuntu (a linux distribution) instead. Towards the end of the day, I decide to restart and try to boot into xp. Grub comes up, and whoa! No xp! um, ok.. So I boot back into linux and change the Grub. Alright, finally xp loads up, but... ? It takes a very long time (I check the task manager, but It doesn't show any process hogging cpu or ram); I find my virus protection software has been deleted (avast), and neither of my firewalls will work (I get some kind of system error). Then, I start hearing music coming from my speakers.. ? When I try to turn it up or down, the sound stays the same (its some kind of rock music?).. I open windows media player, and the installer comes up! ?? I have to reinstall it for some reason..

um ok, I'm starting to get freaked out now.. I go to system restore to try and revert to some other day, and I find that system restore has somehow been turned off!?! .... I turn off my computer, and guess what?? The music is still coming from my speakers!! wtf??? I turn my computer on and boot back into xp, only to find that windows media player has been deleted... I try booting into safe mode, but it crashes every time I try to run safe mode. I check dr. watson, and find that explorer has crashed every time I attempted to run safemode. Now I'm really freaked out.. I figure its some kind of virus? I run 2 firewalls, I have spyware doctor, ad-aware se personal, spybot search and destroy, avast antivirus, peer guardian,.. and numerous other programs that I run regularly..

So, I'm sitting at my desk typing this up on xp.. listening to some kind of beetles music.. hm, it's actually a radio station playing through my speakers somehow.

okay, well I have definitely never seen anything like this in my life.. please pm me if you have had a similar problem or you know wtf is going on..:sad:

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by AdrianC|Uk

Dani AI

Generated

Practical triage and recovery notes for the symptom set described by (unreliable booting, missing system/security components, Safe Mode crashes) and the hardware-interference point raised by . These steps prioritize data safety, separate hardware vs. OS problems, and show what to try before (or instead of) a full format.

  • Isolate hardware first: unplug wireless/USB speakers and any nonessential USB devices, power-cycle them and the PC, test with a passive wired headset. Persistent audio when the PC is off = external/radio interference; if it stops when unplugged it was likely hardware.
  • Backup before repair: boot a Linux live USB (or WinPE/BartPE) and copy user data to an external disk. Do not run risky repairs until you have an image or full backup.
  • Disk and boot triage (non-destructive first): run the drive manufacturer’s SMART utility or smartctl; run chkdsk /r on NTFS volumes from a working environment; inspect partition/MBR with TestDisk or a WinPE tool. Create a bootable rescue disc (offline AV rescue media) on another machine and perform a full scan for rootkits.
  • Offline troubleshooting for Windows files/services: use a PE environment (BartPE/WinPE) and Autoruns to inspect startup items and shell extensions; review Event Viewer/drwtsn32 dumps if accessible; run sfc /scannow from a working Windows or with appropriate offline switches. If System Restore is damaged, consider restoring the registry from C:\WINDOWS\repair only after backing up C:\WINDOWS\system32\config.
  • When to reformat: if SMART shows hardware failure, a rootkit persists after offline cleaning, or system files are irreparably corrupted, image the disk, then do a full wipe and reinstall. After recovery, keep one trusted AV, one host firewall (or router firewall), reinstall patched OS components, and change all credentials.

BartPE (as noted) or a current WinPE build is very useful for the offline steps above. If recovery steps feel unfamiliar, image the drive first and seek help rather than performing destructive changes.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for christina>you

Wow... very strange. =/

commented: Here is some rep that actually counts :) +11
Member Avatar for Serunson

Wow that is weird....

Member Avatar for Rebel_245

OK this is a new one on me, sounds like a real challenge

Member Avatar for joshSCH

Whops, should have marked as solved.. I had to reformat..

Member Avatar for AdrianC|Uk

First of all. You should only have one firewall running. If you got 2 they will cause each other problems.
Secondly the music is definately radio interferance. Check your wires are plugged in properly and cables aren't split anywhere.

It sounds like what has happened though is a bit ****** up. What I'd have done before the format was to check for recently installed/modified software. Probably a hard-drive issue, maybe the Master Boot Record is corrupt. Very strange though

Member Avatar for joshSCH

Well yes, but I suppose I should have said one firewall is the router firewall.. the other is actually run as a service within the OS. So, there is no interference between them. As for the music, my speakers are wireless usb powered.. and I discover that at night they can pick up strange AM frequencies (due to the fact that the stratosphere? lowers, and allows for said frequencies to reach further distances). I did try everything possible.. fixboot, fixmbr within the recovery console.. the system restore was corrupted, so I couldn't do anything about that... I developed some serious OS problems after anyway, and I felt the best option was a format.

Member Avatar for AdrianC|Uk

Fair enough. I've spent hours on a messed up machine trying to salvage the windows state. Sometimes it's the only option. I kinda do a reinstalls all the time so It's a pain in the a*se. Another good bit of software is BartPE. Like a windows live cd. Pretty handy tool for anyone.

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