Hey everyone, I suddenly came across this problem where windows kept checking my floppy drive every 2 seconds. Then when I open my task manager it opens and just disappears to the task bar without me being able to open it again. Same goes when I try to open msconfig. I figured I had a w32 virus of some sort so after trying to diagnose it (and failing) I reinstalled the OS. Now it's still happening! I haven't even connected to the net yet apparently since my network settings weren't set up (usually when I reformat it automatically connects to the net). Anyways - HELP! Please and thank you! Ryan

Disabling floppy seek in your system BIOS was all that was needed to stop the floppy drive issue. Too bad you had to reformat unnecessarily. Jabbering Idiots: Everywhere You Look!

Thanks for your suggestion. I'll try to disable that in the bios but I don't think that's it. I just reformatted again and it still didn't go away. I tried to access my 2nd hard drive with all my saved files on it and that's when the problem with the missing task manager/msconfig/floppy seek started again. Could it be possible that the virus is on that drive? I've never come across anything like this before and I've seen almost everything. I'm at my wits end and not feeling too good about all this.

I just ran hijack this and came up with this: Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2 Scan saved at 2:08:08 AM, on 7/7/2008 Platform: Windows XP SP2 (WinNT 5.01.2600) MSIE: Internet Explorer v6.00 SP2 (6.00.2900.2180) Boot mode: Normal Running processes: C:\WINDOWS\System32\smss.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\winlogon.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\services.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\lsass.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\System32\svchost.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.exe C:\WINDOWS\xmss.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\wscntfy.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\devldr32.exe H:\xmss.exe H:\xmss.exe C:\WINDOWS\PCHealth\HelpCtr\Binaries\MSConfig.exe C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskmgr.exe I:\xmss.exe C:\Documents and Settings\Ryan\Desktop\hijackthis.exe F2 - REG:system.ini: Shell=explorer.exe, xmss.exe O9 - Extra button: Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe O9 - Extra 'Tools' menuitem: Windows Messenger - {FB5F1910-F110-11d2-BB9E-00C04F795683} - C:\Program Files\Messenger\msmsgs.exe -- End of file - 1061 bytes H and I are my external drives and it looks like the xmss.exe is the problem (though once I clicked on my d drive (a seperate drive within my system) all this happened again. I have all my important information on there. How do I make sure that my d, h, and i drives are not harbouring the virus and if they are, how do i get rid of it?

Formatting wouldn't have any effect on the settings in the bios so sabertooth is correct. If you think that your other drives have viruses on them then slave them in a box with up to date protection and run scans.

Thanks for the suggestion. Now the only question that remains is why the system won't connect online or even acknowledge that there is a connection during the windows install. Would transferring the contents of the drive to a mac and reformatting the external/slave drives ensure that the virus will be gone by the time I transfer the files back on the drive - or do I still run the risk of transferring the virus back on the drive afterwards?

http://www.greatis.com/appdata/d/x/... says xmss.exe is W32/Sdbot-DIQ.