No USB support is only the first symptom of many: If no virus, whatis going on?

I was just given a Vaio to diagnose and it is flummoxing me! It has XP Media Centre on it.

First, it gives endless no-usb controller drivers error messages on boot up but I thought XP had basic USB support built in? Yet the system threshes around endlessly looking for its drivers. And putting the install CD in doesn't help. Nor does 'install from a location' and pointing to it. It cant find USB Controller drivers there either. The USB support which is downloadable seems to come from INTEL and installing that completes and then doesn't change anything. If I try to install USB support from the XP download page on the MS site, the button is greyed out.

Next, the NIC doesn't seem to be working either. Meaning the wifi scanner is there, starts up but never sees any networks. Just to make sure I know this is a software issue and not hardware, it has worked about once every 10-20 boots. AND it does seem to work with a Mint startup DVD.

Updating drivers in device manager doesn't do anything of course.

The computer does have TORRENT installed so I suspected a virus or malware and some of the scanners in AV-CLS don't work but Trend Micro did scan to completion and found nothing.

The other problem with this system is that windows updates don't install properly. It needed 81 updates but repeated installation only showed that something is stopping installation. Anyway, I am now down to the last 10 which wont install.

(Oh, and running windows update just gives error messages telling me it wont run. Seems like it might be a HOSTS file blocking anything MSUpdate)

I am not ruling out the possibility that some malware has got around Trend Micro: The last suspicious symptom is that greyed out download button: lots of download pages (eg Spybot and lots of CNET pages) show greyed out download buttons! But zoek doesnt find the problem either.

Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:
I was just given a Vaio to diagnose and it is flummoxing me! It has XP Media Centre on it.

First, it gives endless no-usb controller drivers error messages on boot up but I thought XP had basic USB support built in? Yet the system threshes around endlessly looking for its drivers. And putting the install CD in doesn't help. Nor does 'install from a location' and pointing to it. It cant find USB Controller drivers there either. The USB support which is downloadable seems to come from INTEL and installing that completes and then doesn't change anything. If I try to install USB support from the XP download page on the MS site, the button is greyed out.

Next, the NIC doesn't seem to be working either. Meaning the wifi scanner is there, starts up but never sees any networks. Just to make sure I know this is a software issue and not hardware, it has worked about once every 10-20 boots. AND it does seem to work with a Mint startup DVD.

Updating drivers in device manager doesn't do anything of course.

The computer does have TORRENT installed so I suspected a virus or malware and some of the scanners in AV-CLS don't work but Trend Micro did scan to completion and found nothing.

The other problem with this system is that windows updates don't install properly. It needed 81 updates but repeated installation only showed that something is stopping installation. Anyway, I am now down to the last 10 which wont install.

(Oh, and running windows update just gives error messages telling me it wont run. Seems like it might be a HOSTS file blocking anything MSUpdate)

I am not ruling out the possibility that some malware has got around Trend Micro: The last suspicious symptom is that greyed out download button: lots of download pages (eg Spybot and lots of CNET pages) show greyed out download buttons! But zoek doesnt find the problem either.

Boot with a Linux LiveCD, and test each of the USB
ports with a USB flash key. To see that insertion
of the key is detected and so on.

That will tell you the hardware is working to some degree.

And malware can get around just about any tool or program.
It all depends on what risks the owner took.

Even something like Adobe Flash can allow bad things
to happen, and a large percentage of users have that
loaded on the computer.

Paul

Boot with a Linux LiveCD, and test each of the USB
ports with a USB flash key. To see that insertion
of the key is detected and so on.

That will tell you the hardware is working to some degree.

And malware can get around just about any tool or program.
It all depends on what risks the owner took.

Even something like Adobe Flash can allow bad things
to happen, and a large percentage of users have that
loaded on the computer.

Paul

And Adobe flash has such a tedious and convoluted update process that I'll bet many users don't want to go through the rigamarole (which seems to exist solely to focus your attention on Adobe for lengthy periods) every few weeks.

I had assumed that if the OS detects the USB controller, the controller must be OK and something is preventing the driver from installing. And that whatever is preventing the driver from installing is also preventing the install process from seeing the driver repository?

I hate to drag this out but I thought I would find what is wrong in the log file: But for some reason, the log only goes back a couple of weeks! SO I have been trying self-help but with definitely mixed results. SFC /scannow /f /y still flashes across the screen but doesn't even start to run, neither in user, administrator nor in safe mode and, incredibly, i tried in desperation to (load bios defaults and) run a repair from the slipstreamed install CD and when I press ENTER to get to the install XP screen to run a repair install, I get a CAN'T FIND HARD DRIVE error!! BIOS shows not one but two hard drives!

Oh, and suddenly not only does the system not see its USB HOST CONTROLLER drivers on startup, now it cant find ANY network drivers on boot or on boot into 'safe mode with networking'.

I am not the sort of person to jump to thinking I have a BIOS virus but I certainly am beginning to wonder what on earth is going on!

Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:
I hate to drag this out but I thought I would find what is wrong in the log file: But for some reason, the log only goes back a couple of weeks! SO I have been trying self-help but with definitely mixed results. SFC /scannow /f /y still flashes across the screen but doesn't even start to run, neither in user, administrator nor in safe mode and, incredibly, i tried in desperation to (load bios defaults and) run a repair from the slipstreamed install CD and when I press ENTER to get to the install XP screen to run a repair install, I get a CAN'T FIND HARD DRIVE error!! BIOS shows not one but two hard drives!

Oh, and suddenly not only does the system not see its USB HOST CONTROLLER drivers on startup, now it cant find ANY network drivers on boot or on boot into 'safe mode with networking'.

I am not the sort of person to jump to thinking I have a BIOS virus but I certainly am beginning to wonder what on earth is going on!

This is WinXP.

If the Southbridge is in IDE mode, the WinXP driver
works right away.

If the Southbridge is in AHCI mode for the SATA port,
you need to press F6 early in the Repair Install, and
offer a floppy diskette with the Intel AHCI driver.
There is no in-box driver for AHCI SATA.

Since you "loaded BIOS defaults", you inadvertently switched
to AHCI, and WinXP needs a floppy with a driver during Repair.

Setting the SATA port to IDE mode in the BIOS,
makes repairing easier.

Paul

Then I must be doing something very wrong: I couldnt find anywhere in the bios to change a HDD SATA or IDE value. And I cross checked this by updating the bios from a version 130 to a 162! Without any change in what is changeable.

Is it really possible that on a Sony Vaio I need to load HDD drivers just to run a repair to the OS??

I am beginning to wonder if installing some driver checking utility might help? I always thought they were just there to harvest email addresses but this no-usb controller driver really has me stumped

Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:
Then I must be doing something very wrong: I couldnt find anywhere in the bios to change a HDD SATA or IDE value. And I cross checked this by updating the bios from a version 130 to a 162! Without any change in what is changeable.

Is it really possible that on a Sony Vaio I need to load HDD drivers just to run a repair to the OS??

I am beginning to wonder if installing some driver checking utility might help? I always thought they were just there to harvest email addresses but this no-usb controller driver really has me stumped

If you made the recovery discs for the computer,
there should be a set of discs which are capable of
doing factory restore. Plus one additional disc which
has drivers on it.

By examining the driver CD made when you first got
the machine, that should give you a list of drivers.

You can also run a Linux LiveCD and use the Terminal and
the "dmesg" command to review the boot sequence and hardware
discovery. For example, on my Acer, I can see the word "AHCI"
repeated for each port on the Southbridge. So it is capable
of telling me what mode is selected. I have a Ubuntu 16.04
USB key, with my maintenance LiveCD. I use that, when
there is something too hard to do in Windows.

If your machine has a hardware defect, then the Linux startup
should show problems or errors too.

One problem with my laptop, is reliable keyboard key detection
at startup. I can hardly get into the BIOS, or select
the popup boot, without the laptop stubbornly booting
the OS instead. The window available to press a key
is ~ 1 second. So your timing has to be perfect, to
get the laptop to accept key presses. On my Acer, F2 enters
the BIOS, F12 is the popup boot. I prefer the popup boot,
to select the USB key for booting.

Paul

No, I just got it and it used to be owned by a hospital so it isnt inconceivable that many problems I am experiencing are caused by some security setting. eg it is deeply suspicious that it cant get to any microsoft download page at all, in any browser.

Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:
No, I just got it and it used to be owned by a hospital so it isnt inconceivable that many problems I am experiencing are caused by some security setting. eg it is deeply suspicious that it cant get to any microsoft download page at all, in any browser.

Maybe it's the way the network is set up,
or the machine is domain-joined. (And no,
I don't have a precise definition of what
the last one means.)

While Internet Explorer has a "proxy" setting,
and it could be pointed at some hospital server,
I wouldn't expect all your browsers to work the
same way. AFAIK, a proxy exists, to reduce Internet
traffic (by caching popular queries).

You could start off in Command Prompt with:

ipconfig --- check it isn't using the APIPA address 169.254.x.x

nslookup www.sun.com --- a DNS lookup attempt

ping www.sun.com --- attempt to get a server response via ICMP

That sort of thing. Do some basic tests on networking.
Check Device Manager and see if all networking devices
are present and "yellow-mark-free".

Paul

I figured that but my knowledge of networks isnt all that great.

On your DM point, there were only the usual !s by all USB items but suddenly all !s are now marked UNKNOWN and all USB devices seem to be working OK!

The internet IS working all right except that lots of download links dont work. Only yesterday I was trying to download malwarebytes and it wouldnt download.

On 9/2/2016 2:36 PM, Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:

I figured that but my knowledge of networks isnt all that great.

On your DM point, there were only the usual !s by all USB items but suddenly all !s are now marked UNKNOWN and all USB devices seem to be working OK!

The internet IS working all right except that lots of download links dont work. Only yesterday I was trying to download malwarebytes and it wouldnt download.

Is your antivirus program unable to download updates? If so you may have
a virus. If you can access Trend Micro and use their free Housecall
online virus scanner that might be good to run.

Mike S wrote:
On 9/2/2016 2:36 PM, Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:

I figured that but my knowledge of networks isnt all that great.

On your DM point, there were only the usual !s by all USB items but
suddenly all !s are now marked UNKNOWN and all USB devices seem to be
working OK!

The internet IS working all right except that lots of download links
dont work. Only yesterday I was trying to download malwarebytes and it
wouldnt download.

Is your antivirus program unable to download updates? If so you may have
a virus. If you can access Trend Micro and use their free Housecall
online virus scanner that might be good to run.


Using a reliable computer, you can download this.
BitDefender also makes a product like this for free.
I've only checked that it detects EICAR, and have never
found any real malware with it, so cannot vouch for
how it responds. It will spot things like say, OpenCandy.
I think it spotted some files I had downloaded on purpose
with OpenCandy in them (I have the word OpenCandy
right in the file name to remind me :-) ) OpenCandy
is a channel for Adware.

http://support.kaspersky.com/8092

Paul

For the first time ever, malwarebytes has found something, and something left in place by zoek!

The computer seems to have backdoor.bot plus a large amount of adware trojans.

I wonder what backdoor.bot has actually been doing and how widespread its concomitants have extended? Also whether getting rid of it also gets rid of its effects?

Amanda Ripanykhazova wrote:
For the first time ever, malwarebytes has found something, and something left in place by zoek!

The computer seems to have backdoor.bot plus a large amount of adware trojans.

I wonder what backdoor.bot has actually been doing and how widespread its concomitants have extended? Also whether getting rid of it also gets rid of its effects?

There are sites offering free, assisted, malware removal.

Visit a site like Bleepingcomputer for example, who can
help you.

Here is a sample thread, of how the user gives scan info, and
the trained helper on the web site, suggests a tool or recipe
for removal. Each case is different, so the recipe given to
this person, might not be the same as one given to you. The
recipes are custom-constructed for the situation.

https://forums.spybot.info/showthrea...g-Backdoor-bot

Paul

Thanks for that suggestion, I havent posted a log on a site like HijackThis for about ten years but it must have been luck on my part.

Let's see what malwarebytes actually does. Thus far I now have all peripherals (USBs) being properly recognised in device manager. I am looking into which download sites are still blocked, - I can see already that windowsupdate wont run (but windows does still update through the automated method) and I am trying to run AV-CLS, which ran but the trojan did manage to destroy much of its functionality including, eventually, deleting its start app!