Replies

Thank you guys for your replies. I’m sorry F.U.N. that I made you read all the way before finding out that I had figured it out. It was only like 5 minutes after I posted that that I decided to make sure it wasn’t the monitor. I should’ve put that in at the top somehow. Nate, I agree with you. I have found that 99% of the time the cable is the culprit and that was actually the first thing I swapped out. Again, thank you guys for your replies. This community is imho the best out there.

Val

Hey Jerry,

Thanks for the info. Somewhere in the back of my mind I suspected that your answer was the right one but I kept thinking that the router/gateway settings overrode the NIC. I couldn’t find anywhere on the net to test what my DNS settings were even though IPCONFIG/ALL shows the ones I manually set in the NIC. As for flashing the firmware again I”m certain you are right, especially w/ my luck. And I’m also sure that that $50.00 router/modem would suddenly cost a couple thousand bucks if I bricked it…

Thanks again for the help.

Val

Oh Man, my sympathies. I had a somewhat similar experience with a nasty piece of work called “Security Essentials 2011” and what a nightmare it was/still is. Just a quick back story. I built a system for my mom b/c she wanted to learn to get on the net, email, etc. She is absolutely 1000% computer illiterate, so much so she thus far cannot grasp the concept of using a mouse, clicking on an icon, anything. I bring this up b/c although the computer was connected to the net, I had installed Norton Internet Security 2010, updated it with the latest definitions and made sure that both Automatic Live Update and Pulse Updates were enabled, had installed all MS updates for XP. The machine is fine for weeks then one day while I’m over at my Mom’s I see all these virus warnings and whatnot from this rogue software. What confounded me is that this software had to somehow “seek out” and find this system that supposedly had the latest virus definitions on it and was “stealthed” by Norton’s firewall because I know for a fact that my Mom couldn’t have launched IE or FF if her children’s lives depended on it (I have to remind her what the mouse is) and no one else has used the machine.

I tried everything I could find to get rid of that mess. MBAM was no go, rkill got shut down, changing extensions to .com and whatnot had no effect, it still shut them down as soon as they tried to execute. Finally for some reason it did let SuperAntispyware’s software launch with the .com extension (that was the only one) but once it finally finished the scan and I removed everything it had marked the machine would not boot, not into safe mode, last known good, nothing. Right now I don’t remember the particular sequence of events but it just keeps cycling through the initial boot sequence. It reaches a certain point and then just reboots. There is no error message or anything (that I can remember) it just keeps rebooting. When I have some spare time and can somehow find the drivers for it I am just going to reinstall XP Pro on it. I think that somehow this program dug itself deep into some system files and when SAS deleted the files it had marked as spyware/trojans it hosed the whole shootin’ match.

You know, I really do hope that there is a special place in hell for the people who write these viruses, trojans, malware, spyware and so on. My only real regret is that I cannot be the one to send them there. If the U.S. spent half as much for a “War on Viruses” or whatnot as it has wasted on its War on Drugs or War on Terror, completely ignored international borders so that the writers had no place to hide and held public executions of the ones they found, the problem might just go away. The real terrorists are going to be the ones who manage to cripple the U.S. infrastructures because we have become so dependent on computers to live a day to day existence and they need to be dealt with.

I’m sorry, I just really HATE the people who do this. Best of luck to you Mainer.

Val

Graham, there is another possibility that you might want to take a look at if you haven’t already. It is Fravia’s Web-Searching Lore I’m not sure if you will find anything of use there or not but maybe so. I hope it helps. I have been perusing it a bit here and there when I have some spare time in hopes of honing my Google Fu and there seems to be a ton of information to sift through.

Best of Luck to You,

Val

~slowly shakes head…~ You know, I’ve been doing this for going on 9 years now and in that 9 years I’ve seen things – as I’m sure all of you have – that will make you laugh so hard you cry because your side hurts so bad, will make you wrinkle your forehead while at the same time your jaw falls slack and agape in utter awe and amazement at something someone either says or does or says they did, – you know what I mean – we’ve pretty much seen it all or so we think. Anyway, back on point, I’ve been doing this for this long, and I’ve seen that setting time and again, and yet in this instance I didn’t even think about it…

Thanks Christian for reminding me about that and thanks again to everyone else for all of your input and suggestions.

Merry Christmas to all!

Val

Also you may want to check your BIOS to make sure that USB 2.0 is enabled. (OK, just re-read your original post – it looks like it is…but still, keep reading…) Along with making sure that USB 2.0 is in fact enabled in the BIOS, you will also want to make sure that there is no setting such as “USB 2.0 Controller Mode” that is improperly set and thus limiting your speed. While each motherboard manufacturer is different there are only a small number of BIOS vendors and you will need to check the manual that came with your motherboard for the exact location of the setting to check. On my particular motherboard, an Asus P4P800-E Deluxe, the setting is located under the “Advanced” header, “USB Configuration”. Under that section you can make sure that the USB 2.0 controller is in fact enabled AND that it is set to the proper mode, which would be “HiSpeed (480Mbps)” as opposed to “Full Speed (12 Mbps)” or disabled as some of the other members have suggested.

One thing that you didn’t mention and it may turn out to be a hitch in your giddy-up is whether or not you have a “branded” computer such as Dell or Compaq/HP or the like. IF you do then you may or may not be able to change that particular setting as the big box manufacturers tend to lock their BIOS settings down somewhat, BUT on the other hand, if it is a branded computer then chances are that the USB 2.0 controller is already running at the HiSpeed setting to begin with. The only way to know will be to actually go into the BIOS and snoop around – just be careful. If you accidentally change a setting then you can always “Exit Without Saving Changes” and you’ll be OK. Each computer / motherboard manufacturer has a different method to access the BIOS. This is usually done by pressing a certain key during the system boot. For example mine requires that I press the “DELETE” key while the system is booting in order to access the BIOS. Dell computers I believe you have to press either the F2 or F12 key during boot but I don’t remember right now. No matter what key it is, when the system first boots it will tell you on the monitor what key to push (But only for a couple of seconds so you have to be watching and paying attention and if you miss it you can reboot right away by pressing the ctrl+alt+del keys simultaneously). Usually you have to press the key repeatedly during the boot process in order for it to “catch” and you may have to reboot several times until you get it. The BIOS is navigated by using the arrow keys on the right side of the keyboard and exiting is done by one of the F-keys depending on what you want to do – save your changes or Exit without saving. Usually navigation instructions are printed on the bottom or right hand side of the BIOS screen.

I hope this helps.

Well, as I mentioned in my first post, for testing purposes I moved the drive to a powered USB hub to see if that made a difference and so far so good. The drive has not disappeared or powered down or anything of the sort so it seems like that may have taken care of the problem. I have had a thumb drive plugged into that hub for months now and it still shows in Windows Explorer.

I’m so sorry to have wasted everyone’s time with this. If I had just moved the drive to begin with then none of this would have been necessary. Nonetheless thank you all so much for your advice and input.

Val

Ted,

Like you I have my system set to show hidden files and folders, I do not hide extensions for known file types but I do keep protected OS files hidden. Like Peter, my desktop is my daily inbox. Everything I download goes there until I have time to deal with it or decide to deal with it and then I will move it either to the Recycle Bin or to it’s respective folder. It seems that the older I get my younger days of “peace, love and groovy colors” takes its toll and my short term memory is fading fast. If I downloaded to any place other than the desktop initially I would likely forget I had even downloaded it before the download completes I hope that this is an issue that Microsoft will look at providing a fix for at some time. While it is mostly just an inconvenience I think it still needs addressing.

Thank You All for all the advice and input…

Val

By God that did it! If ever I have the chance I’ll buy you a tasty beverage of your choice. I knew there had to be more than one way to skin that cat. I just couldn’t figure it out. Truthfully I would not have thought of going about it that way. Noted.

Thanks So Much Joe,

Val

OK, I tried that and here is the copy/paste of what I received – pretty much the same thing as before…

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:Windowssystem32>Icacls “C:UsersBrianFavoritesTech StuffMS Office”
C:UsersBrianFavoritesTech StuffMS Office: The system cannot find the file s
pecified.
Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files

C:Windowssystem32>

It just blows my mind that I can see the folder in Windows Explorer and IE9 but can’t do anything with it. In my simple mind I am reasoning it out that if it is being DISPLAYED then Windows has to see the file in order to display it…to quote the great Jimmy Buffett “Yes, no, who knows? I don’t know…”

Again, Thank You All…

Val

The TechNet article is a little confusing, not sure what syntax I would use to accomplish said goal. When I tried to see what the DACLs were on the folder in question (C:UsersFavoritesTech StuffMS Office) it gave me an “Invalid Parameter ‘StuffMS'” which seems to coincide with what another user at the site wrote in their comment that the Icacls command does not seem to like spaces. I had to back all the way up to C:UsersFavorites before it would give me any results and it showed that NT System, Admins and Myself specifically had full access permissions as it stands. Could you be a bit more specific in what exactly it is that we are trying to accomplish and as I mentioned above, exactly what syntax I would use to do so?

Thanks so much, sorry if I’m being a pain, I’m just a bit confused, been one helluva day, brain is totally fried and stressed out right now. It’ll probably all make perfect sense tomorrow but right now I just can’t seem to wrap my mind around it…

Again, Thank You for your help,

Val

Hi Dave,

Yes, it is listed within IE and the Favorites Folder. “Organize Favorites” was the first way (well…second after right-clicking and choosing “Delete” from directly within the Favorites list) that I tried to delete the folder and initially found out that this problem even existed.

Wow, this has really gone from the sublime to the ridiculous hasn’t it…

Val

Fred,

Thanks so much for the suggestions. I did download and install both Everything and Winbubble. I already know what the file path to the folder in question is and from what I can tell from the error message that I am receiving the file is not locked, it’s just that for some reason Windows doesn’t see the folder as even existing when I try to delete it. Anyway I did as you suggested and took ownership of the folder (which doesn’t make sense how I can take ownership of a file or folder that Windows doesn’t think exists? The command prompt came and went too fast for me to read what message was displayed…) but when I tried to delete the folder I got the same error message as before. I tried Unlocker and it actually offered the most hope even though it told me that there were no locking handles attached to that folder it offered to delete it and when that failed it offered to delete it on the next reboot. So, when I rebooted I anxiously opened Windows Explorer but much to my dismay, sitting there mocking me, laughing at me maniacally was that folder.

Well…once more into the fray…

I’m sorry, I forgot to mention that I had also tried both running chkdsk /r and booting into safe mode and then immediately trying to delete the folder. Neither method worked. I received the same error message. Disabling X-Marks did not help either. Still at a loss but thank you for the advice.

The thing I hate most about Chrome’s Bookmark system is how the folder comes down the right hand side, not the left and there is no way to dock it as there is in FF with the Ultimate Sidebar addon or in IE. Once that’s fixed I’ll likely go to Chrome completely.