HELP! What is going on????

I have had a partition on my main drive "F" that is only 5gb. I have had no files - nothing on this partition at all - just like an unused drive. Today, I open up Windows Explorer and see all these weird looking files. I know cryptography, but I don't see the code here!  

I know some about computers in general, but I have no idea what this is. I got a screen capture and sized it to the directory listings only and have enclosed it below.

Oh...another weird part: this is only a 5gb partition, yet look at the bottom of the screen at what it's showing. Even the individual "files" and "directories" show 1.7gb, 6.7gb, etc......to me, that doesn't make sense.

Is there an innocent explanation do you think?

Here's the picture. OH!  As far as pest control, I run PC-cillin, Trojan Hunter, PestPatrol, AdAware.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you!!!!

John

If the picture doesn't show up - here's a link:
[link]http://www2.eboard.com/eboard/boards/7/94/72/RazDazRR/att-564507/weirddir2.jpg[/link]

http://www2.eboard.com/eboard/boards/7/94/72/RazDazRR/att-564507/weirddir2.jpg

I'm modifying this message: I can't get the picture - or the link to work. I double checked the link in the post box and it's fine, but once I click it on the board it won't work and I get a 404. I see that it's put a space in the url where I don't show a space when I have it posted in the posting box. OR, I tried it again and it shows a %20. To look at the picture, just take the space or the %20 out.  Sorry. Hope somebody has an idea as to what this is!!

 

http://www2.eboard.com/eboard/boards/7/94/72/RazDazRR/att-564507/weirddir2.jpg

Hi John,

Above is the right url for your picture.

You did it with the word "link" between [ and ] , and it need to be "url" between [ and ]. I hope you see what I mean  

 

John,

I'm afraid that I am totally in the dark about what is shown on your pic. I definitely hope someone will jump in who is able to tell you more about it.
Maybe it could be of help when you tell which OS and file system......

 

Thank you for correcting the link! When I hit the image button it puts the Link tags in with "URL" in the middle, I thought that just meant to insert URL in between the link tags.  Does yours not do that? Hit the 4th button on the bottom row and see if it doesn't put link tags in yours. Bizarre. At least now I know......thank you!

Duh! That would help - I run Win98se, Athlon XP 1900+, 512mb RAM. Formatted at Fat32 4k clusters.

John

 

I would suggest that what you see is nothing more than data corruption. Since the drive has no valuble data on it, delete the partion and recreate it again,  then format. I would be surprised if that doesn't fix it.

 

Unicron's right - reformatting that partition should fix it.

But, if I understand you correctly, you never put any files on there at all, right? That brings up another, larger issue...

 

Yep, what has caused this....

 

hold up, when a drive gets corrupted, sizes are not correct.

Remember, the drive can store ones and zeros, and it is supposed to be remembered what locations hold data, and which are old data locations that are now available to be used. A format and/or repartitioning does not actually delete anything, just marks clusters as used or available. So with all these ones and zeros laying around, and the corruption screws up which blocks are used and which are not, any sized files can appear on a drive.

 

Interesting. What really has thrown me is the fact there wasn't any data at all on this partition. Along with the fact it all looked like garbage. I did what has been suggested and of course, it's all nicely formatted and ready to use. I kinda knew if I did that I would be back in business, but I was thrown because of the data corruption when there was no data on the partition and was leery that there had been something malicious going on. But, apparently not? If that's the case, I feel much relief. I feel fairly safe with the tools I use I mentioned above, and I didn't mention I also use ZoneAlarm. So I knew something had to be pretty sneaky the way this is all tweaked to get in. So, relief.
Thank all of you for the help and for making it easier for me to sleep tonight!

John

 

lol, I forgot to change it when I removed to olympic rings from my pic. I found something else to amuse the world for a while.

do you like?

 

Er...how come?  

 

That's pretty immature of them.  Tell you what, over here, you can say whatever you like and we won't object.  That even applies to Unicron.  (And me, I hope.)

No, no, don't thank me.  

(Actually, it's odd - I don't know why, but I really don't like visiting Becky's.  Over here's much friendlier and responsive, IMO.)

 

agreed. I can have a freindly rivalry with Checkout here and no biggie. If you are going to go over there, you best get your mud slingers out!

with all the accusations and insults over there, coming here is like visiting a Zen masters temple. Calm, soothing and perhaps even informative.

 

Hey, here's an idea - instead of section for flamers, why don't we have a section more like a mineral spa, where we can all let this wash over us?  A refuge for those savaged at Becky's and GRC?

A drinks cabinet will be necessary.  And a smoking area.  I can picture it now...

On second thoughts, maybe not.  Blechh!