Help! Need to remove unknown virus.

[adamski49]

Dumb question 1: Can my admin password be different from my login password?

Trying to do a repair (quick fix until I have the time to do a fresh install) and I'm asked for my admin password. I only out the new HDD in a year ago with a complete install and I normally use the same password or a simple, easily guessed one such as admin.

None of my usual passwords, simple passwords or the one I was sure it was are working.

Dumb question 2: Is there any way of retrieving the password? Tried via user accounts and this another part of windows that won't let me in.

Fresh install looming

TIA

Adam

 

[adamski49]

Ok, all back to normal - all data files restored and software installed and set up as before (took me a while to find my email address book in Outlook though).

Cookie - I've installed a second HDD to use with your Acronis recommendation. Hopefully this will make any future restores a simpler and quicker process. First image was about 3 hours (at least that's what it said before I went to bed) so how come when I scheduled a daily incremental image this was going to take 2 hours? Is daily too often? Should I just do a weekly image?

I also back up daily to both an external HDD and offsite secure back up (Depositit) so data isn't an issue, just swift system restore in the event of another file corruption / HDD failure.

One last question - this new HDD is bloody noisy (I assume it's the new one), constant drone. Is this normal? The new one is a Maxtor Diamondmax 8 (40Gb) to accompany the existing Maxtor Diamondmax 9 (160Gb). Jumpers on CSL, BIOS reads as Primary and Slave as does device manager. Is there any way of stopping the thing spinning? I can actually feel the thrumming through the floor so god knows what it will be doing to the motherboard.

Adam

 

[cookie]

dunno what's up with acronis. my initial image took about 15 mins & incremental backup now it's grown to over 20GB takes less

i have seen this problem with drive image. i've even seen the solution somewhere, but i've forgotten what it is have a hunt round on the acronis support pages.

problem could be linked to the noisy hard drive? should be reasonably quiet, bit of whirring & clicking when actually accessing/writing data.

i try & back up once a month and occasionally in between as i feel like it. i find that partition does not change too much. i'd only lose a few addresses & emails.

 

[adamski49]

Could be the drive... it's giving me a headache so I'm taking it back. Took it out to check and the comparative silence was bliss.