Computer Won't Shut Down
Monday, April 3, 2006 by PoSmedley | Discussion: Personal Computing
parse error ';' at line 173
I had to click on it a few times to get to logon and when I did, it was WindowsXP's regular logon.
I tried to do a system restore, but again, it will not shut down or restart.
Reply #22 Wednesday, April 5, 2006 12:38 PM
| It's possessed Any split-pea soup gushing from the floppy drive? |
LOL, that's some silly shite. Poor guy needs anti-spyware and you got him running for a priest.
Reply #23 Wednesday, April 5, 2006 1:07 PM
Reply #24 Wednesday, April 5, 2006 9:25 PM
Reply #25 Wednesday, April 5, 2006 9:56 PM
| I'm pretty sure if you empty your recycle bin it won't scan them. Files in your recycle bin aren't really deleted, just relocated. |
Kevin, I found out that AV proggies do scan deleted files because I watched Avast scanning a whole bunch of walls I had deleted after resizing them from 600 x 800 to 1024 x 768.....and on that same drive, system files from an uninstalled OS were also being scanned. After running Sure Delete those files were no longer present and did not appear in the scan....prior to this Avast was scanning 2 million + files, now its scanning under 1 million after cleaning the 8 partitions on each of my 3 Hard Drives.

Reply #26 Thursday, April 6, 2006 7:39 PM

Reply #27 Thursday, April 6, 2006 8:47 PM
Reply #28 Thursday, April 6, 2006 10:26 PM
Before you do this (but it might save time if you do a repair first), back up all data important to you and do the following... it might help. (By the way, you shouldn't loose anything by repairing the OS, but just in case save important files).
Get these programs:
Process Explorer
HiJack This
Object Desktop Drive Scan
Spybot Search And Destroy
Microsoft Defender Anit Virus
Boot in safe mode.
Run these utilities from the START >> RUN box:
services.msc
msconfig.exe
regedit
Any setting, folders, names that look odd, check them out. Check them from from automatically starting up, make sure windows messenger is disabled (in the services.msc app).
Run HijackThis
Again, any names, entries or what have you that look odd, make a note of it.
Run Stardock Drive Scan and see any wierd looking folder names... then delete them (or rename them). The ones that DON'T allow you to are the prime suspects
Run Process Explorer:
This should tell you every process that is running on your computer. Sometimes these virii have 2 (two) proceses that basically restarts the other proces if you delete or end the other process. So you actually would have to stop BOTH.
ONCE YOU HAVE YOUR LIST OF CRAZY NAMES, DELETE THEM. Delete them from HiJack This, delete them from regedit (also use regedt but deleting will be done in regedit). You might have to actually stop (not delete, just stop from the seervices window or from Process explorer) a microsoft svhost in order to delete the alien process but leave that as a last hope.
Now run Spybot and delete some more
Now run MS anti spyware and remove whatever else
Now run one anti virus software (do not have 2 or more anit virus software platforms installed at one time)
If your system still isn't running properly, repair it with the XP boot CD again.
Reply #29 Thursday, April 6, 2006 10:36 PM
You might want to read this eWeek article -
Microsoft Says Recovery from Malware Becoming Impossible
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,1945808,00.asp
Backing up your computer has just become a burden like spam email.
Reply #30 Thursday, April 6, 2006 10:50 PM
| Starkers, that's got to be annoying... The only way I can think that Avast would be able to do that is if it walked the entire surface of your HDD looking for the beginning of a file and then scanning each next section because deleting the file should remove it's record from the FAT table at the very least which is technically the way programs like Avast should be finding files to scan. |
According to feedback from family and friends I told about this issue, it seems Avast is not the only AV proggie that scans deleted files. My sister still uses Norton and cut her scan times considerably after running Sure Delete....my niece uses AVG and reports the same result, scan times reduced by half after cleaning her drives of old data.
This is an explanation from the makers of Sure Delete.......
Sometimes "delete" means "kinda sorta delete." When you drag a file to the Recycle Bin, you only move it to a new location. Even when you empty the bin, your files are still retrievable by Undelete utilities. Sure Delete permanently deletes that data from your drive. Whether you want to shred sensitive information or free up resources on your hard drive, this program ensures that it's done permanently. Rather than simply deleting file references on your computer, the program actually destroys the data itself. Sure Delete offers a wizard-style interface that guides you through the process of deleting files, cleaning up your hard drive in minutes. Sure Delete supports the FAT12, FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS disk formats.
I'm not tech savvy enough to explain why some AV proggies scan deleted files, but I do know that the OS cannot completely remove them from the drive, even after reformatting, so if an undelete proggie can locate and retrieve them, then I suppose AV proggies, which are designed to scan all files for virii, would also locate and therefore scan them.
Perhaps someone with more knowledge than I can shed more light on this.....but Sure Delete most certainly removed the remnants of previously installed files, OSes and recylcers to cut my AV scan times by more than half.

Reply #31 Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:12 PM

Well, you can see I haven't exactly shut down as much software as possible, as I am sitting here online...

Reply #32 Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:29 PM

Reply #34 Thursday, April 6, 2006 11:53 PM
| Just don't give it your diseases |
I let it slide when you bashed Tony Orlando...but now you're getting personal. I'm gonna have to add a dragonfly swatter to my Troll thumping club.

Reply #35 Friday, April 7, 2006 12:16 AM
, the spare hdd can be smaller so long as the data does'nt exceed it's overall capacity , you'll find this site useful , if the link don't work just google for radified forums , http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgiReply #36 Friday, April 7, 2006 11:17 AM
| I'm not tech savvy enough to explain why some AV proggies scan deleted files, but I do know that the OS cannot completely remove them from the drive, even after reformatting |
Who knows, maybe I'll check out this Sure Delete and see what it finds on my PC.
Now, as far as Norton is concerned chances are she has the Norton Recycle Bin app installed on her computer which does keep copies of deleted files around even after you delete them from the Recycle bin. Also, when re-installing an OS if you choose the quick format option for your partition then you really are only overwriting the FAT table on the partition which does leave the actual data on your drive. After that the only thing that will really get rid of the file is if some or all of the file parts are overwritten by new data, which on a really large HDD could take some time. I'm guessing that what Sure Delete does is what's called a destructive delete, in which is overwrites all of the data with either garbage data or 1's and 0's to ensure that nothing can come back and read the previous data. OK, well I'm off to find Sure Delete and see what it's all about.

Reply #37 Friday, April 7, 2006 3:42 PM
Now, as far as Norton is concerned chances are she has the Norton Recycle Bin app installed on her computer which does keep copies of deleted files around even after you delete them from the Recycle bin. Also, when re-installing an OS if you choose the quick format option for your partition then you really are only overwriting the FAT table on the partition which does leave the actual data on your drive |
As for my sister's machine, she does not have the Norton recyle app enabled because she had problems with it earlier on in the piece, so I don't think it's that. As for the quick reformat option, I've always use the full reformat option because it makes for a better clean install, yet the old data remained because an OS cannot completely erase a HDD. I guess that's why govt and others selling their machines use proggies like Sure delete to ensure their data is unrecoverable. I don't know how it removes old data or how it works, I just know that it did what I required of it.
| I'm trying it out right now. It sure takes a lot of time to run. |
aimzzz.....sometimes, if there is alot of old data, Sure Delete will take a bit longer to run as it will go back and forth during each pass to erase more efficiently. However, on drives where you can move your files to say your OS partition, reformat prior to running Sure Delete, it seems to run faster that way. Once complete you can return your files to their original position. Then, when all the other partitions are done, you clean the OS drive, which can take longer than the others as it would have contained all that additional data and cannot be refomatted without rewriting Windows. It may seem like alot of time and effort, but it's worth it as frees up resources for a more efficient PC. As for how often, well every 2 or 3 months should be adequate unless you do alot of deleting/file moving/rewriting, etc.

Reply #38 Saturday, April 8, 2006 7:41 AM
Reply #39 Saturday, April 8, 2006 3:56 PM
There are no viruses or adware, my system, to the best of my knowledge is clean with a fresh install of everything.
There are 2 wb skins that are the only ones that bring up these 'parse errors'.
With Joseph's Live I get.."Parse error ';' at line 173". This occurs when I boot while running ONLY that skin. (so far)
With Evgen's ClearOne v1 and v2 I get..."Parse error '<' at line 1". This occurs when I try to open my control panel with just this skin, so far.
I've tried about 8 other skins to test this and so far these 2 are the only ones giving me these Parse Errors.
I recently upgraded my memory and video card. Here is the WB info..
WindowBlinds 5.0 System Information Report:
STATUS : WB+ SRV+ HLP+ UI+ TRAY+
WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC.
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.
You have one monitor in total.
(COMPAQ FS7600 Color Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Wblind.dll 2006/03/21 13:33:46
Wbsrv.dll 2006/02/05 12:58:22
Wbconfig.exe 2006/03/19 14:33:44
Wbload.exe 2006/03/13 17:54:12
Wbhelp.dll 2004/09/18 16:37:00
Wbui.dll 2005/12/06 21:29:06
Tray.dll 2005/11/02 13:28:26
Is this a 'skin' problem, 'wb problem', or is it my PC?
Reply #40 Saturday, April 8, 2006 11:24 PM
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Reply #21 Wednesday, April 5, 2006 12:18 PM
Can't wait for the PC to get built on an electron, quantum-mech style ("it works if you don't look at it...??!!!), get it implanted,contact-lens HUD, chip-and-store myself for future generations (immortality!...)... bottom line: "in a hundred years, nobody'll know the difference anyways".[looks out window,EMT van outside, guys with white strappy jacket coming at a run....]
gotta go, there's someone at the d