I believe I've been HACKED! Need Help From Linux & Win XP Experts

I used Partition Magic 8.0 to do dual booting - Windows XP Home Edition & Red Hat Linux 8.0 Professional Edition.

I downloaded a MPEG file from Kazaa & opened the file without scanning with my Norton Anti Virus which I usually did. Later, when I switched on my PC I received this message.:

"We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this. If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files & folders, choose Last Known Good Configuration to revert to the most recent settings that works. If a previous start up attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the Power or Reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows Normally.

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode Command Prompt
Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked)
Start Windows Normally. "


I tried every option but the box keeps on looping between Red Hat Linux Grub loader & Win XP Home Edition. After the Win XP logo there is a long message in the blue screen which I could not read as it appeared in a split second. All I can see is some hexadecimal numbers. I could not gain access to my Win XP. I have to opt for Red Hat Linux to get into my PC.

I do not want to call Dell technical support as I installed Linux without their recommendation. The most they could do is to ask me to reformat my hard disk & reinstall my Win XP again. I don't want to do that as there are many important files in my Win XP. Furthermore, I have to spend a few days to reinstall all the softwares like Macromedia softwares, Visual Studio, etc .

I hope someone out there could help me as I really regret trying out Red Hat Linux because I do not know what to do. I am using Red Hat Linux now to type this because my Win XP is not working.

Thank you in advance.

you can try re-installing WinXP without doing a full restore, but that depends on if you have a full version XP disc or not. You'll also have to use a boot disk to get into linux, and you'll have to reinstall Grub.

installing this way will keep your progs (for the most part) intact.



advice: don't use kazaa anymore. It's full of viruses, and strays pretty far from secure.

If you are able to boot from your Windows XP CD, do it and choose Recovery Console. Do a Bootfix or Fix /MBR. I would also do a Chkdsk from there. This should rebuild your Master Boot Record for XP if nothing to drastic happened. Your RedHat will probably still be intact also, Good Luck!

you may not have been hacked, or caught a virus, but it is likely. One question do you have a USB digital camera?

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Originally posted here by Wazz
If you are able to boot from your Windows XP CD, do it and choose Recovery Console. Do a Bootfix or Fix /MBR. I would also do a Chkdsk from there. This should rebuild your Master Boot Record for XP if nothing to drastic happened. Your RedHat will probably still be intact also, Good Luck!

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Build a working copy of grub onto a floppy before you do a fix /mbr or fdisk /mbr, as that will blow out grub

Yes, I have USB camera but not digital camera. It is a web cam that I used in Yahoo chat. I also have external Hard Disk using USB port, Wacom Tablet also using USB & also a Microsoft Wireless Optical Mouse using USB. Is the Web Cam the culprit? Please let me know. Thanks.

I am not sure on the web cam, I get the same problem on XP if I boot with my sony digital camera pluged in and turned on. Before you blow out XP try to boot with the devices removed form your system (this is how I useualy trouble shoot, keep plling a device one at a time untill it works...if that dosn't work then look to the software.)

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Do a Bootfix or Fix /MBR. I would also do a Chkdsk from there. This should rebuild your Master Boot Record for XP if nothing to drastic happened. Your RedHat will probably still be intact also, Good Luck!

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Like BBallad said, I would really suggest that you not follow these instructuctions. If you do fix mbr from the recovery console, you will lose the ability to start Linux, because your GRUB loader will be removed from the master boot record. Just some advice.

AJ

quote: "I hope someone out there could help me as I really regret trying out Red Hat Linux because I do not know what to do. I am using Red Hat Linux now to type this because my Win XP is not working". I assumed he wasn't that concerned with trashing Linux...perhaps not..my mistake.

Ok in my opinion, the problem are not USB devices a like, but i think have's to see the software you've donwloaded from kazaa. Not because a virus or hakers things but remember that not all the software are up-to-date to the Operative Systems, so the software maybe has changed any library that usualy windows Xp has or are trying to start the software at boot time an makes windows go the hell.

Ok, my sugestion is if you can boot on Redhat, do and look to youre NTFS partition to check where the software you downloaded is and try to abruptly erase from youre system or just rename to test my theory. If the system cant find the problematic file maybe just report you and let you get in. So try and dont do things like "fdisk /mbr" or "Reinstall youre system", untill this is totaly necesary. we are here to gave you quality solutions, or wath ever comes to ower minds.

xDrack

I agree With waiting on the OS reinstall untill a last resort, But I woulkd start with Hard ware...a good rule of thumb is to rule out the easiest fix first then work your way towards more complex problems

Yea the hard ware are an option to check, but she is like telling us that the problem begans when she installed a new program, so the easyest for me is to look at this first.

xDrack

i could not understand from your post if you said you have called dell yet but I had this same problem almost exactly on my fathers computer. It was caused by a Yapoo messanger nuke, and pretty much crippled the system.

The good news is I got with HP tech support and they said it was just a "windows error" that needed a patch file. I love how tech support guys refuse to say that someone on a messanger program trashed your box and there is next to nothing you can do about it. I think it would go a long way to making people understand just how dangrous it is in this computer jungle. Then again if everyone knew how bad it was they would Screem for changes and all the computer security people might be outta a job.

Anyway he mailed out a magic 3.5 floppy that restored windows to its old self. This was on a windows XP computer so your mileage may vary but Im pretty sure DELL can help you on this one. If you talk to the people at dell tech dont even mention that you have a second OS installed on your system because

1. It is none of there business
2. It has nothing to do with the problem you are faceing right now.

Just tell them what you were doing before it happend and make it sound like you are a dumb computer user that feels nothing could ever go wrong with a DELL computer and they will be more then willing to help.

I tried the same thing and ran into so many problems. In the long run I end up just fdisking everything and starting from scratch. O yea, I don't know if this will help you at all but I couldn't get lilo to work at all and had some trouble with grub and end up removing grub and making a boot disk for linux. Now everything works fine.



hjack

Quote:

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Originally posted here by blunuke420
i could not understand from your post if you said you have called dell yet but I had this same problem almost exactly on my fathers computer. It was caused by a Yapoo messanger nuke, and pretty much crippled the system.

The good news is I got with HP tech support and they said it was just a "windows error" that needed a patch file. I love how tech support guys refuse to say that someone on a messanger program trashed your box and there is next to nothing you can do about it. I think it would go a long way to making people understand just how dangrous it is in this computer jungle. Then again if everyone knew how bad it was they would Screem for changes and all the computer security people might be outta a job.

Anyway he mailed out a magic 3.5 floppy that restored windows to its old self. This was on a windows XP computer so your mileage may vary but Im pretty sure DELL can help you on this one. If you talk to the people at dell tech dont even mention that you have a second OS installed on your system because

1. It is none of there business
2. It has nothing to do with the problem you are faceing right now.

Just tell them what you were doing before it happend and make it sound like you are a dumb computer user that feels nothing could ever go wrong with a DELL computer and they will be more then willing to help.

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I think you could be right. I was in Yahoo chat before I logged off. However, I don't have Yahoo Messenger installed. I just reinstalled the Yahoo web cam & voice chat. I also have MSN Messeneger. So your HP tech support managed to help you out without knowing that you have 2 OS.

I am really scared that Dell will not be able to help.

I think I will never use Sysgate Home Firewall again because I thought of trying it for fun. In the past I used Zone Alarm & Mc Affee & have no problem even though there was so many attempt to scan or hack my PC.

Thanks.

It's more like a virus, I think.

If by some chance you choses FAT as your file system type when you formatted your HD i belive you can mount this partition in Linux and thus have acsess to all your files

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Originally posted here by yourname
If by some chance you choses FAT as your file system type when you formatted your HD i belive you can mount this partition in Linux and thus have acsess to all your files

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Mine is NTFS & I used Partition Magic 8.0 to create a partition for Red Hat Linux. Now I find that Linux is boring. A lot of stuff cannot be done with Linux. However, I should be glad because I am still online. I think I need to get a new computer. I need to call Dell tomorrow. Hopefully they will not ask me to reformat.

If you know any site offering step by step solutions to my problem please let me know. I BEG YOU! I WILL POLISH YOUR SHOES IF U R IN FRONT OF ME. :(

Hey shakira,

HP and DELL know about these kinds of things. They don't advertise that they know this info, but all the same they know it. I would venture to say that DELL already knows that you have Linux installed on your computer through some 2 way system ID software that came preinstalled on your computer. This is why I am TOTALY aginst buying computers "out of the box" (from dell, compaq, HP...) but all the same it really does not matter in the end. Just Call them and tell the tech support guy about yahoo, and the message you get when you boot up and your problem will be solved. This is not an uncommon occurence with all the script toddlers running around yahoo and Dell knows this :)

Hi shakira, i readed this thread a few days ago, so i'm asking you if you have done some thing with youre windows jet or still using the borring Linux as you say.

If you're still in Linux, i can hellp you so let me now if you still need help.

xDrack

Firstly, before you follow all the other suggestions, boot to linux and back up your important data from your windows partition. Secondly, if you believe that you have a virus on the windows partition, you may want to get an antivirus that works on linux, to check the windows' files, to clean or remove any possible virus. A boot diskette that removes the virus would work as well. If that doesn't work, your gonna have to REPAIR (NOT RESTORE) xp from a full version cd. Make sure you make a linux boot diskette before doing this, as repairing xp will overwrite the master boot record. Hope the suggestions help.



PuRe