More Awesome Than You!

Hey folks,

I figured I'd come here with this question as I don't think those other places can help as well :P

  I run sims on an older computer. Earlyer, I was in B.S... and the maxis made files, as well as alot of my DLs, just up and dissapeared. It was most frustrating... When I rebooted Body shop they came back.. this time. It happens frequently, and I've lost alot of stuff. apparently into thin air.
  I'll also mention that the computer I'm useing for this reboots constantly... Although moreso while online. (It isn't so much a problem for game, as it seems more stable. but downloading files and stuff is dammned near impossible.) Sorry for the computer tech question, but I was just wondering if the reboot problem is related to why I'm loosing stuff? Is there a fix?
 Thanks again,    I.P.

Hello, IronPhoenix,

I am probably the last person here who should say anything due to lack of tech experience, but when I read your post, it brought to mind the old MSBlast worm of years ago (we did have protection, but this sort of thing was new).  Your description is nearly identical to the one I found on the net just now when I googled to verify the name.  The trouble began with intermittent crashing but was rebooting so quickly in the end, you couldn't even reach the net let alone do anything else.  It lived on one of our old computers and my son went after it by going to a friend's house to do the look up at Symantec and Microsoft for the current advice at the time.  He then came home and went to work on it, ruthlessly.  He was able to rid the computer of it.  I would imagine by now there are countless worms/viruses that behave in like manner.  Have you considered such a possibility?

As far as if this rebooting could be the reason for your lost cc, I shouldn't think it would be good for the computer, let alone anything you might have running on it.  I am sorry not to have a solid techie type answer for you, and I do wish you the best.

This definitely sounds like some nasty malware. Try going to http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm (http://www.pandasoftware.com/products/activescan.htm) and click on the big blue button that says "Scan your PC now". It will take a good long time to do, but that bugger catches almost everything...including some malware I had right after getting my current comp a couple years ago (which nothing else would diagnose). You can either pay to buy the program (worth it, IMO) or do a quick search on http://www.geekstogo.com/ (http://www.geekstogo.com/) and stumble through fixing it. The geeks helped me with my Vundo problem, for which I'm eternally grateful.

Your last resort solution is always to reformat your harddrive, but you will lose absolutely everything. People suck.

thanks...

I felt bad asking for some tech help here... I've tried to restore to factory settings, I've checked on conflicting programs, and scanned the PC.. Albeit with an older virus scan... (This machine is not my primary computer. ) It was also sent out a year or so ago, to fix this issue... It came back, ran well for a bit... And the problem started again.

What are the specs for that system?  Ram, video card, and PSU?

Any kind of random rebooting is a serious symptom of something very wrong.
If you're lucky it's just malware, and it can be removed.

It can be a symptom of anything from a weak power supply to overheating to a Bios needing updated to malware to hard drive failure to a bad stick of RAM to unstablle electric feed from the wall. Or a combination of any of those. Basically, all you can do is try to eliminate them one at a time. It took me 18 months to finally fix my occasional reboot problem- I'd changed: 2 PSU's, 2 UPS's, 1 video card,1 hard drive, updated the Bios, checked the RAM multiple times, watched all temperatures, etc. Finally, the last Bios update seems to have solved it. (As long as I don't go to the TS2 homepage via Firefox- if I do that, my (dual core) processor maxes out and I crash. Even via IETab, it's forcing me to use IE only. Apparently Maxis can't even code Flash)

Avast gave me a virus alert from their online antivirus scan.

I have had numerous issues with my lappy.

Today, just for shits and giggles, I woke up to find my laptop mostly black-screened with an "Operating system not found" message. After having a mild heart attack, I shut it down, whipped out my 98 to try and websearch for the cause (it was only left alone, unconnected to the net, nothing running, for three hours while I passed out from fatigue...midterms suck), and, on a hunch, restarted it.

It has since been sweetness and light and sugar and spice all day.

I suppose it has to completely ruin my day at least once a month in order to make sure I properly appreciate it and back up my data. *ugh* >.< Stupid Windows machines. Gah.

The problem? Either something slipped in when Trend Micro's trial expired, my anti-shitware programs are fighting again, or a virtual drive program spazzed out. Apparently it decided to reboot or run a diagnostic or defrag automagically during the three hours it was not being babysat.