Device manager blank

[jlreich]

A friend at work was at some porn sites last night and must have gotten infected with something. I keep telling him to stay away from those places but he doesn't listen. I even burned him a copy of Knoppix to use when surfing porn but he didn't use it. :rolleyes:

Anyway I haven't had a chance to really look at it yet but the device manager is completely empty. :confused: Not a single device listed. I looked in there because he has no sound at all.

Also he tried a system restore with no effect. Big surprise there. :rolleyes: He also noticed that most restore points are gone and the few that remain have been corrupted when he tried to use them.

I did an HJT scan but nothing in there out of the ordinary. Tried Housecall but got an error saying the engine was not able to load. Did a local virus scan with Trend Micro's Office scan at work but it came up with nothing. But Office scan is not connecting to the master program. This is a laptop BTW.

I had to get to work so I didn't try anything else. My question would be is there a virus/spyware that is known to do this?? And if so what is the best way to approach removing it?

Sorry I don't have more info at this time. I was just thinking if this is a known virus you could point me in the right direction.

Thank you.

[Steve]

Not everything is malware related. :)

Check out the KB link and see if that helps. KB Link (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;311504)

You never know, though. Maybe shutting off the plug and play service is the first action by some malware... :eek:

Bud' will know if there has been anything like that going around.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Not sure about a virus. Registry errors or bad sectors in a harddrive could cause these symptoms. When things just up and dissappear, it's usually a physical error. If you rebooted and let's say, DM was ok but something else didn't work, it could be sectors of memory but again, a physical error. Memtest would rule that out. ScanDisk or others, would rule out the harddrive.

It's really a tough call to narrow anything down at this point from your brief look at it so far. Clue us in as you gain more info. ;)

[jlreich]

Thanks Steve and FTT.

Well because he said he was at some porn sites and other things started to go crazy. Not sure exactly what they were only that there was something wrong with FF and IE not working right and unable to connect, I assumed it was a virus or something.

But after looking at the KB article it made me think of something he said passing. He has several LAN connections on his computer. One for the office with a static IP, one for wireless signal he is getting from his sister across the street LOL, and one for the new DSL he just got at home. I finally got him to get rid of AOHell. ;)

Well apparently there was some kind of conflict with one of these LAN connections, probably the static one for work. And the technical service rep from the DSL service had him go into msconfig for some reason to fix the conflict.

So now I am guessing he somehow stopped plug and play from starting up while messing around in msconfig. I will try to call him and see if that is the problem.

I will let you know if that was it.

Thanks guys.

[Budfred]

I haven't heard of anything malware related that would do that... If it is out there, we all need to worry... :eek:

[jlreich]

I probably won't be able to confirm it until tomorrow but I am sure he simply unchecked plug and play by accident in msconfig. And who knows what else. :rolleyes: You know how we all were when we didn't know anything about computers, "I wonder what this will do.....". LOL Then you end up spending hours on the phone with tech support.

[jlreich]

That's what it was. Messing around in msconfig. ;)

Thanks for the help guys. :)

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Yep. Physical thing like I said...

He physically removed it with a click of the mouse... :eek: Woops!


:D

[Steve]

Glad to hear that it was something simple. This time, that is. If your friend is visiting porn sites, it's just a matter of time before something happens. To bad he wont use Knoppix for such things. That's good advice. This might be a good time to set him up with a backup strategy. Get him backing up a clean C: drive to use when he finally needs it.

[jlreich]

I tell yeah Steve, I have wiped and fresh installed his computer several times now because of porn sites. Cleaned it up countless times. Probably half of my experience in dealing with malware over the last couple of years is because of him going to porn sites. LOL

I gave up on getting him to stop going to porn sites, which is why I gave him a copy of Knoppix. I figure if he is going to do it, it might as well be in a way that doesn't help infect the rest of the web.

I have been trying to get him to let me show him how to make backups for some time now. It isn't that he doesn't want to make backups but that he is a little intimidated with learning how. I think this time he may actually let me go through it with him. This may actually be straw that broke the camels back even though it was simple. He was asking me more about Knoppix this morning. :)

I really like the guy and wish he would just stop going to porn sites, for many reasons. But unfortunately that most likely isn't going to happen. So hopefully he will start listening to me now.