Windows close by themselves????

[havfthm]

Hello, Everyone

I have an unusual question and was wondering if anyone has a solution. I was given a laptop by a friend who is fed up with it and now its driving me nuts trying to fix it. Basically it appears that either a key is stuck or there is a virus which is closing windows and keeping new ones from opening its also closeing task manager anytime I try to open it. Since I didn't have anything to lose by formatting and reloading windows thats what I did but it didn't fix the problem however upon reloading everything I noticed that there is a 39mb partition on the C drive that had stuff in it. So if it is a virus is it possible that the 39mb partition had the virus on it since I wipped the harddrive??
Thanks for any help in advance.

[Zero Tolerance]

Since you have already reinstalled the OS....I reccomend you to do it again. Only this time make sure your remove ALL partitions and reformat to a solitary partition. Then reinstall the OS.

Maybe you should tell us what OS you are using too.

[havfthm]

Thanks for the input. After I reinstalled the OS the first time I was able to get Partition magic 8.0 to install and then I formatted the 39mb partition but didn't combine them so I will try that and Originally it was a windows xp home edition computer but the only disk I had was a Windows 2000 Professional when I reinstalled it. I will post a response when I get off from work and I make the changes.

[Zero Tolerance]

That doesnt make much sense to me. If the 39mb partition didnt have any system files on it....or an OS....then you should of been able to format it by right clicking on it.

Maybe you just didnt know that you could and used PM on it anyway. Also you didnt mention that you did that in your first post.....you just said you found a 39mb partition.

upon reloading everything I noticed that there is a 39mb partition on the C drive that had stuff in it.

Everyone needs to give us as much information as possible when describing a problem so we can troubleshoot more effectively. I dont think that you leaving that tidbit of info out of your initial post will change my advice....I just wanted to point it out for others that may read this post in the future.

[bigH2O]

In the case you're in right now, you don't need PM. You need to strip the drive down to the basics and start from scratch.

To take Zero's advice to another level, before you reformat again, fdisk the drive and kill all existing partitions, then create one new larger partition incorporating all of the space of the drive. This can be done as part of the Win2K installation... as it's proceeding it will ask you what partition you want to install on. Just follow the destructions... oops, instructions to delete all existing partitions and create a single partition encompassing the whole drive.

If it is a virus, you won't necessarily be able to get rid of it with this... especially if it is a boot sector virus. If it still gives you trouble after fdisking, reformatting and re-installing the OS, you may be in for a lot of steps to clean the drive. You might be better off just buying a new drive and using the old one for target practice.

[havfthm]

Thanks for the advice that everyone gave. I was reluctant to do it but I decided to take all keys off keyboard and clean up the crap that someone spilled there and when it dried it worked flawlessly I guess it was just a couple of keys being pushed all at once that was causing the windows to close. Guess I jumped to conclusions about it being a virus. Thanks again for the advice anyway!

[Zero Tolerance]

LOL...its most often the small things overlooked in the end.

Suggestion to always keep a 2nd keyboard on hand for troubleshooting. Actually buy a new one to replace that one...keep that one for the backup/troubleshooter.

:D

[havfthm]

The second keyboard is a good idea but unfortunatly it would not have helped me because it was a laptop the stuck keys still would have registered that they were being pressed thats why I was trying to do everything except take the keyboard apart.

[Zero Tolerance]

ahhhhhh sorry bout that...I was unaware of it being a laptop