Anyone know of a virus that overwrites sectors?

#1 There are a number of viruses that do; however, IIRC, Windows keeps most programs from being able to access raw disk functions while running. If any program tries to, it usually causes a GPF.

What is most likely the case is that your drives are going bad, due to excessive usage or heat. While it's very uncommon that 3 drives begin to fail at once, it's not completely out of the ordinary and has happened to me and others before.

Your best bet is to download a disk diagnostics program from your hard drive manufacturer's site and run it (it's usually a bootable CD ISO which you can burn and then boot off of) to make sure it's not a hard drive issue. Once you get that out of the way, most Anti-Virus programs like Norton or McAffee have options to create a boot disk which will scan your boot sectors and clean viruses off of them.

Hope that helps some.

- Sam

#2 Resocket your memory modules properly and bring in a case fan into the mix. You might want to run a tool to test your memory modules.
Go here, http://www.memtest86.com/ create a boot disk with this utility on it (Boot CD) and run a memory diagnostics. Since 3 drives are failing at once I believe there's a bigger chance that your memory is poorly socketed, overheating or being dodgy.

Also the memory slots are usually very close to the cpu, thus collecting a lot of dust, and it might be a good idea to clean them using compressed air before you put the memory sticks back in.

#3 I'll look into all those options guys, thanks. It has been really hot in here the last few days as well.

#4 You could try to buy/borrow another hdd from someone disconnect all your drives and install a new win/linux os and see if your hardware is messed up or it's just your current os.

You could also boot a linux knoppix live cd and then mount the hard drives and try copying data around and that will also tell you if your hardware is bad or the current os is the problem.

If you need to get stuff back... the guys that make file recovery tree have the BEST tool to get stuff back. One time at band camp, I lost all my partitions and windows(when I was still using windos3) was jacking up and said everything was lost. I really needed to get my files back because I didn't backup in a long time. Using symantrash stuff didn't do jack. When I played with the demo for frTree I could see all the files I needed to get back. http://www.atl-datarecovery.com/frt.htm

#5 Hiren's boot disk is pretty useful. And Kaspersky antivirus (my favorite of the many out there) has a 2005 beta edition floating around out there (it's on their site _somewhere_) which is free.

You may want to try bit defender's online scanner too. It has caught alot of stuff that some others have missed. It takes awhile to scan so let it run overnight.

#6 A nice free antivirus software is trend-micro's "Housecall"

#7 PCMAG.com's security bulliten just sent out a flash warning to members about a brand new virus they were calling Killer.ad that is capable to destroying sectors and HDs overall.

#8 3 hard drives?

My first guess would to look for overheating problems due to maxxing out your power supply.

Add up the wattage on all of your devices. Here's a handy table:
www.pcpowercooling.com/technology/power_usage/

#9 ...

#10 'One time at band camp,' All I'm saying is american pie ;)

Thanks guys, still no virus found, checked the HDD temps and they're ok. I'm beginning to think its my Board :( Only 6 months old too! Time to do a complete backup onto a million dvds.

#11 I heard of this virus once, I think they call it win-dose its really nasty, but like 90+% of the pc's around the world have it.


Sorry couldnt resist.

#12 When linux become as useful as windows I'll switch :P For now its slow, complicated and I can't be arsed to recompile the kernel just to add a new piece of hardware :P
When its got a good dev environment (DevStudio style), easy gui control creation, pixel level draw control, proper region control and drawing, and a unified GUI set, I'll develop for it.

#13 Notice how whenever someone has a problem the answer generally becomes "Linux (or FireFox) is better and thats why your having problems" but no constructive answer is given after they decide to make their comment.

#14 Don't feed the trolls...

#15 I found a better power supply calculator here:
www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/Power_Supply_Calculator.php?cmd=INTEL