My laptop (running Win XP) is suffering a strange illness: it gets very slow, for no known reasons. The process viewer shows the processors are supposed to be idle.
Suspecting a malware, I looked for a free malware detection and removal tool. I went for SpyHunter free. The experience did not go well.
The installer started the scan without asking me, it installed a boot loader (grub4dos) without asking me, and finally rebooted (after asking me, finally...)
The result: a corrupted ntldr I spent most of this Sunday trying to recover.
Interesting facts learned during this process:
1) The recovery DVD I had to create after buying the laptop (an EasyNote from PackardBell) is useless, failing after giving an cryptical error message ("CDrom <> Operating System!!!", got to love the "!!!" at the end...).
2) The reinitialisation procedure which uses the backup partition is worse than useless (it does nothing but reboot, no error message).
3) The Windows XP installation cd I got many years ago through MSDNAA is no longer readable, at least not on my laptop.
As usual, it was Linux that saved the day in the end. I hate this kind of sundays that just go to waste. So little free time, so many interesting projects, so much better to do.
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Random thoughts of a Frenchman living in Sweden.
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