Monday, May 9, 2011

Folder options disabled by Virus / Trojan

Trouble:Are you among those who are not able to access or see your folder options under File Menu>>Tools in Windows Explorer on your Windows XP ? This problem of hidden or disabled folder options occur normally due to malicious virus (w32.rontokbro@mm) activity.
The virus creates an entry in registry to disable “Folder Options” in Windows explorer.
Let us see how we can fix it.
Fix:In most of the cases, even if the virus is been already removed by your anti-virus program, it doesn’t restore the registry back to the original state. Also anti-virus usually does not delete the registry entry created by the virus.
For restoring the registry settings,follow the steps given below
Enable your folder options in explorer.
1. Go to Start > RUN
2. Type regedit and press enter.

3. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft > Windows > CurrentVersion > Policies > Explorer




4. On the right side of the screen, you can see some registry entry names, out of them, right-click on NoFolderOptions and click Modify option.
5.A new small screen pops up, on this screen, sen the value data field as 0 (zero).Press OK.
That’s it but it requires reboot. Trouble Fixed.
If you don’t want to play with the registry yourself ,you can also download the registry file and double click it to add it to the registry.


How to fix – hal.dll is missing or corrupt in windows

Trouble:
One of our readers Senthil wrote
“When I switch on the computer the following error will displayed : \system32\hal.dll is missing or corrupt please reinstall the copy of above file”
What is hal.dll ?
Short for Hardware Abstraction Layer, HAL is an operating system programming layer that enables the operating system to operate with a hardware device. hal.dll is the dynamic link library file that implements the functionality of HAL.

When “hal.dll missing or corrupt” message appears, it can be because of damaged or missing hal.dll file. It can also be because of some wrong entries in boot.ini file in case you are using two operating systems on your computer. Also it can be because of improper BIOS entries of the disk drives etc.
Lets have a look on how this can be fixed.

Fix:
We have checks and steps you need to follow to fix this error:
Step 1: Check the boot device order in BIOS. For this follow the steps below:
  • Restart your computer and keep pressing the Delete button on keyboard. This will take you to BIOS screen.
  • Go to Boot Menu in BIOS and verify that your hard disk which contains Windows installation is the topmost in boot sequence if you have more than one hard disk.
Step 2: If the above step does not solve your problem, then you need to repair the boot.ini file. See this link for the same.
Step 3: In most of the cases, Step 1 on checking the boot order and Step 2 on repair of boot.ini file will fix the problem. In case the problem is still there, you need to replace the hal.dll from Windows XP Boot disk. For this, boot the computer with the help of Windows XP Boot CD, select the repair setup. On command prompt, type the command as below:

expand x:\i386\hal.dl_ y:\windows\system32\hal.dll
Where x is the drive letter of your CD-ROM and Y is drive letter of your windows partition (usually c: )
Step 4: Even after Step3 if you are facing a problem, then you need to run a repair setup of Windows XP. See this link for details.
Step5: If you are still facing the problem, then unfortunately your Hard Disk Drive has gone faulty, you need to get it replaced.

My computer does not detect pen drives and other USB devices like iPod or external hard drive

If none of your USB devices detect ,this could be due to wrong registry entries. i.e you need to delete UpperFilters and the LowerFilters registry values.

1. Open Start >> Run, and type "regedit" (without double quotes), and click OK.
2. Locate UpperFilters registry value. it resides in the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E980-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
3. Click on Edit menu, and select Delete and click OK.
Note: If you receive an error when you try to delete the registry subkey, you may not have correct permissions to edit the subkey.
4. Locate LowerFilters registry value. It resides in the following registry subkey:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E967-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
5. Click on Edit menu, and select Delete and click OK.
6. Exit Registry Editor and restart your system.

USB pen drive detected but doesn’t show up in My Computer

You may have faced a problem when you insert your pen drive and it gets detected very easily but it doesn’t show up as a drive icon in My Computer. The computer detects the pen drive but data on pen drive is not visible as the pen drive is not visible in My Computer (Explorer).
This problem occurs mainly when windows XP fails to allocate a drive letter to your portable drive(pen drive). It occurs mostly with new pen drives connected to your computer for the first time. If you face such problem then it may not be the pen drive’s fault, rather it may be windows trouble.
Fix:
You can fix this issue by following some simple steps given below.

1. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.
2. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window will appear.
3. On this disk management window, you can see some drives including the portable drive. Right click on your portable drive and click change drive letter and paths.
4. Now a assign a new drive letter which is not being used by any of your drives in My Computer.
5. After assigning the new drive letter your portable drive will show up in my computer with other drives