From: "Geo." 

He isn't picking last known good or anything like that from the boot menu is he?

Geo.

"Chris Robinson"  wrote in
message news:3F8FD76E.621A87C8{at}NOSPAMtotalise.co.uk...
> The Murrey effect - I like it ;)
>
> That's just the thing though, there's only one 30Gb Hard Drive and nothing
> else.  No mirroring or anything and just a standard install of Win2k.  My
> flatmate built and set up this PC himself so there's nothing weird in
there.
>
> strangeness..........
>
> Chris.
>
> "Geo." wrote:
>
> > 2 drives and a mirror partition being mirrored in the wrong direction?
(lets
> > call this the murrey effect, after Bill Murrey from groundhog day)
> >
> > Geo.
> >
> > "Chris Robinson" 
wrote in message
> > news:3F8FA704.17AB77C{at}NOSPAMtotalise.co.uk...
> > > This is the strangest problem I've ever seen on a PC.  The PC belongs
to
> > > my flatmate's brother and runs Windows 2000 service pack 2.  His
brother
> > > called him up yesterday to say he was having a strange problem.  He
said
> > > that whenever he reeboots his PC it goes back to how it was before (a
> > > GREAT description there :oP).
> > >
> > > Anyway, my friend went over to have a look at it and here's what
> > > happens:
> > >
> > > - You boot up the PC and it boots into Windows with no problems.
Let's
> > > call the state it's in after boot (all files/ folders/ settings etc)
> > > state A.
> > > - Whatever you now do to the system, like install/ uninstall software/
> > > apply Windows service packs/ delete files, when you reboot it will
> > > return to state A with any deleted files returing, any installed
> > > programs not there anymore etc.
> > >
> > > First off, let me tell you that the system has a 30Gb Hard Drive.  5Gb
> > > is for the Windows partition and the other 25Gb is a seperate
partition
> > > for data.  Both are fairly full (the Windows drive only had about 38Mb
> > > free when my frend went around to look at it).  Here's what he did:
> > >
> > > - Booted the system.  Uninstalled AVG6 and installed AVG7, making sure
> > > all registry entries/files for AVG6 were gone comletely.  Ran a full
> > > VirusScan of the system and found some Virus's that he said were
> > > "non-major" ones.  AVG removed them completely. 
He disabled system
> > > restore/ hibernation features.  He then cleared over 1.5Gb of temp
> > > files/ crap from the Windows drive and defragged the system (which
took
> > > 1/2hr or so).  He then deleted about 1Gb of data files from the other
> > > partition as a test (these were backed up onto CD).
> > > - So, after doing this, he reboots the system.  Guess what?  It
returns
> > > exactly to state A - the virus's are back, AVG6 is back with no trace
of
> > > AVG7, the 2.5Gb of deleted files had returned and the drive was as
> > > fragmented as before.  Strange huh?  He also mentioned there was no
> > > major hard disk activity upon reboot (so some app wasn't restoring an
> > > image each time - and where would it store the data anyways?)...
> > >
> > > I mean, you start to think that it's some kind of problem with data
> > > being written to the disk (i.e. it's not being!) but can this happen
on
> > > this scale?  Is it possible that there's some kind of program lurking
> > > that makes Windows think it's performing write operations to the disk
> > > but isn't?
> > >
> > > The strangest thing is that he's tried it all in safe mode with the
same
> > > effect.  Also, the defragging bit's odd because he saw it defrag and
> > > there was hard disk activity when it was defragging (like there should
> > > be).  I've suggested trying a tool like Eraser to completely wipe some
> > > files whilst in Windows and see if they return but I think they would
by
> > > the sounds of things because it appears that they're not actually
being
> > > deleted in the first place!
> > >
> > > Has anyone ever seen this kind of thing before?  I know there are 3rd
> > > party devices that can do this (I think NEC make one that restores an
> > > image on each boot) - but this is a PC that my flatmate built from
> > > scratch.
> > >
> > > Chris....
> > >
> > >
> > >
>

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