HDD pinging noise with neutered virus.

[cattletruck]

After many months of ahdoc attempts to solve the problem below I have reached the limit of my abilities.

I have a semi-old desktop computer (Pentium dual core) running Windows XP that is not connected to any network and doesn't run any virus checking.

Some time ago it got infected by a virus, probably via a file transfer, this was noticeable by the following observations:
a) Opening My Computer and seeing corrupt characters next to the drive names.
b) Changing into the My Computer folder from above or below would take about 40 seconds.
c) The HDD head arm would whack into park state making a pinging noise whenever the mouse was moved or key pressed after being left idle for about 20 seconds.

I installed an old commercial virus checker and it found nothing, so I installed a fresh free virus checker and it too found nothing. I googled the symptoms and found a link that described the virus and how to neuter it by hand. I followed the instructions and of the 3 symptoms above only b) and c) remained. Unfortunately I cannot recall the virus name.

Recently I purchased a new hard disk and literally copied everything across from the old hard disk and hacked it all to make it boot from the new drive (I really didn't want to install everything from scratch again).

Now I just have symptom c) remaining but in a different key.

Task Manager only shows about 20 processes running which is about right as I have turned off lots of Windows services. I have checked their legitimacy (find the location of the binary, right click, properties, version) and they are fine.

I re-installed my old but still supported version of Symantec virus checker with the latest virus definitions but it didn't find anything, possibly because the virus was half neutered.

I don't think it's a faulty hard drive, I can give it a huge copying job to do without touching the mouse or keyboard and it will do it without making that pinging noise.

I reset the BIOS to defaults but that didn't do anything, I'm thinking of maybe reflashing it if I can remember how.

I tried googling the symptoms again but it looks like the modern spate of cheap faulty pinging disks now occupy the top search results.

I don't want to reformat the drive and start again, that's a weeks worth of software installations.

I'm all out of ideas, has anyone else come across this or can advise?

[vulcanised]

Since you say it's old (and I can't think of anything better), have you ever changed the battery?

[MacBoero]

I reckon the original disk was failing and corrupting files, no virus involved at all.

Copying everything from the old disk to the new disk copied the corruption too, so you are no better off, except maybe being to read the corruption more efficiently!

Needs a fresh install in my opinion, and then copy any documents and files from the old disk that you can, that are not corrupted.

[green granite]

Why don't you put the old disc back in the m/c and use a windows disc to try to repair it? then you could transfer the repaired system across.

[M.Mouse]

If it is a virus the procedure outline by Milo here (http://www.pprune.org/computer-internet-issues-troubleshooting/506964-b88gger-ive-got-virus-help.html) should find and kill it.

[Milo Minderbinder]

from the description of the symptoms I'd assume this to be a failing hard drive. Given the age, its suspect anyway. Replace it.

As matter of interest, what make / size was the drive? I'd bet on an 80GB Excelstor, given what you've said, but the symptoms could happen on any


And by the way, throw that old Symantec install disk away. Symantec antivirus doesn't work, period. And old versions work even less. It certainly won't clean an infected machine

[cattletruck]

As a matter of course I have re-installed Windows on both disks as this Windows feature works very well and preserves all your old settings, but that didn't change anything. I have also used UBD to rewrite MBRs etc but that hasn't changed anything either. Both disks are Seagate with the original being 200Gb (4+ years old) and the new one being 2Tb (8 months old).

I sometimes don't switch on this computer for months (unplugged) and it still keeps the time so the clock should be fine.

The old disk is still in this computer and I can still boot off it, I'm using it as an online backup until it dies. Booting into either Windows system exhibits that same pinging sound from the hard disk as described in my original post. I just can't believe I have two disks that have faulted in the same way, it must be remnants of that virus I neutered some years ago, if only I could recall the name.

Symantec antivirus doesn't work
Sage advice, it always looked like marketting fluff to me. Can you recommend another (not AVG, found the free version to be a waste of time). I have been impressed with Trend Micro in the past, not sure if that's still relevant today.

I really don't want to upgrade this computer as it's fulfilling my business/household needs very well, I'd just like to get rid of a potential problem that may render it useless. I will eventually upgrade it in the future and my plan is to buy another powerful (expensive) computer of the era and convert my current computer into virtual form as an interactive backup.

[green granite]

I think most of us use the free version of Avast (http://www.avast.com/index) anti-virus

[Milo Minderbinder]

So lets get this right.
The old drive, the one we think is faulty, is still in the machine?
Surely thats what is causing the problem

As to antivirus, use Avast!

[cattletruck]

Just pulled out the old drive (and DVD player for good measure) and the random disk pinging noise persists.

In the above configuration I also heard the disk pinging noise just once when in the BIOS screen, I started selecting menus and etc to see if it would happen again but it didn't. This implies that either the disk is faulty or I have a virus in the BIOS. I'm betting on the problem being a BIOS virus as I have 2 drives (Seagate ST2000DM001-9YN164 and Seagate ST3200827AS) that exhibit the same problem.

Will Avast detect and clean up BIOS viruses? The BIOS is Award Software International, version F7 (31/3/2006), on a Gigabyte motherboard of the era, 8194PL-G.

[cattletruck]

Looks like there is a Firmware update for the Seagate ST2000DM001-9YN164 to 'fix' a random 'chirping' noise. Downloading Barracuda-ALL-GRCC4H.exe right now.

Who would have thought.

I may as well update the BIOS while I'm there with version F8.

[cattletruck]

The disk firmware update fixed the problem (or rather suppressed the noise enough to make it barely perceptible).

I wonder what the engineers were thinking to release a disk that made a sound like there was a broken spring bouncing around inside. :ugh: