-=PCTechTalk=- Re: OH BOY I NEED HELP FOR A FRIEND

Pat,
    It sounds like either there's a program on the machine that continually 
restores bad (possibly, but not necessarily, malicious) files (this could be 
a Trojan, worm or even Window's own File Protection at work) or maybe he has 
some hard drive corruption going on and needs to run CHKDSK with all the 
trimmings to block off any bad (or going bad) sectors.

    I would first have him run CHKDSK (right click on the drive > Properties 
 > Tools tab > Check Now button) with both options checked (Automatically fix 
... & Scan for and attempt ...).  It will tell him that it cannot run on a 
drive that's in use and will ask him if he would like to schedule a scan on 
the next reboot.  He must answer Yes to this and then he should reboot the 
machine and let it run.  The time it takes will depend on the size of the 
drive, the number of files on the drive and whether the drive is formatted 
in FAT32 or NTFS.  If it's a large, somewhat filled drive, it may be best to 
let it run overnight.

    If the problems persist afterwards, he will probably need to have 
someone physically take a look at the system to determine whether it's 
bugged or just being flaky.  About the only other suggestion I can provide 
is to run HijackThis on the system and submit the resulting log to one of 
the HijackThis forums.  He can get the program and learn more about how it 
works, what it does, how to use it, etc. from places like the site below. 
This site is only one example.  He can always run a web search for 
'HijackThis Forums' (without the quotes) to locate others with which he 
might feel more comfortable.

http://www.cybertechhelp.com/forums/index.php

Peace,
GMan

"The only dumb questions are the ones that are never asked!"

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patricia" <rhekay@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "PCTechTalk" <pctechtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2007 9:56 AM
Subject: -=PCTechTalk=- OH BOY I NEED HELP FOR A FRIEND


> Oh BOY! I need HELP for a friend, he called 2 days ago with this problem .
> He's getting this error
> ""Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not 
> have the appropriate permissions to access the item."
> he's using XPSP2
> this all started when his son was on "My Space"....and he is unsure if the 
> son downloaded anything (at this point they are not talking)
>
> So I did a search and found some info here:
> http://forums.devshed.com/windows-help-34/windows-cannot-access-the-specified-device-path-or-file-424648.html
>
> He ran several virus scans nothing came up except 3 spyware and those he 
> removed successfully.
>
> We did a restore back 1 week  but had to do it in the safe mode..all ran 
> quite well afterwards...he logged off went to bed
> and next morning we are back to square one...so on his own he did another 
> restore back a little further but as the administrator
>
> this first restore was his sign in name....all went really well as 
> before...until he logged off and now this morning we are back to square
> one again
>
> any suggestions please.....do you think he's pc has been hacked? 

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