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Illegal Windows License??

P

Pacfanweb

Lifer
Here's the deal: I have a spare computer. I built it for my mother in law 2 Christmases ago. I bought her a legit copy of Win 98 and put it on. Last Christmas (2001), she had a power surge or something fry her motherboard and power supply. She lived in PA, and I live in NC, so she got it fixed up there.
She died this past June, and we ended up with the computer. So I decided to put it in the network last month to at least use for storage. I updated the windows, and it seemed fine. Both of us have surfed a bit with it, and it worked ok.
Well, I tried the other day to get to the hard drive from my own rig, and it wouldn't let me in. So I go over to wake it up, and figured I'd need to reboot, since there were a couple of error screens up.
I reboot, and I get a black screen with this:

Notice:
Illegal Microsoft Windows License detected
You are in violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Your unauthorized license has been revoked
For more info, call 1-888-NOPIRACY
If you are outside the USA, please look up correct contact info at www.bsa.org
Business Software Alliance
Promoting Safe and Legal Online World


WTF is this crap?? Have I been hacked? Or is this legit? The only way that computer has an illegal windows license is if the shop that fixed it for my mother in law loaded one on there. I still have the one I bought for her right here.
Hopefully I won't have to format, since I've stored a bunch of stuff on there.

Anyone ever see this?
 
You can always call microsoft and verify that. open up system properites and under the general tab where it says registered to is a string of numbers, microsoft can compare that string of numbers with thier database against your product key to see if it's the right software. Assuming microsoft still supports Win98, last I heard they will stop supporting it very, very soon, I can't remember if that press release said Jan. or June though. they should still be able to confirm the liscence either way.
 
You say you "updated the windows"... updated it to what?? I assume you mean XP, as XP is the only OS that has this kind of product activation and security feature.

Its possible to get this message when running XP even if you have a legit copy and license. A reporter for PC MAG (I think it was them) had his copy de-activate itself. Still, I would think that your OS license was questionable.

I don't know if that message you got is the same one I have seen before, but the only way you can get around it is to activate over the internet. Apparently though, MS determined that wasn't going to happen either.
 
By updating Windows, I meant that I went to windows update and downloaded all the new fixes, since the computer hasn't been used since last June. It is still running windows 98SE.
Oddly, it was working earlier that same night just fine. I didn't have anything running on it, it was just sitting there and it went to sleep....when I woke it up to restart it, I got that black screen with the message then.
 
You've all been had. This, my friends the work of a virus.

Text

Update your virus defs and scan your hd for infected files. Or, better yet, reinstall Win 98.

EDIT: oooooh Noggin ya beat me!
 
Originally posted by: Mrburns2007
Sounds fake, did you have a firewall ?

Not that a Firewall would stop a smart hacker.
Click to expand...

and there's like 5 of those in existance. its just a virus. a firewall wont stop an ignorant user 😉
 
Originally posted by: BingBongWongFooey
Originally posted by: Mrburns2007
Sounds fake, did you have a firewall ?

Not that a Firewall would stop a smart hacker.
Click to expand...

and there's like 5 of those in existance. its just a virus. a firewall wont stop an ignorant user 😉
Click to expand...

Ive met more than 5 smart hackers.
 
Yes, it sounds pretty nasty....
All other sectors of the hard disk will be overwritten with random bytes, wiping out all information on the hard disk. The Trojan also attempts to do the same to the floppy drives.
Click to expand...
 
No luck so far..........wonder what chance I'd have of changing the hard drive to slave, and installing it in a working computer with antivirus protection as a second drive and scanning it that way?
 
Have you done a LOW level format of the drive? Go to the manufacturer's website and download their drive utility. It should let you perform a low level format of the drive. if the payload has been activated on the virus and i think it has (judging from your descriptions of the problem) then i'm pretty sure just virus scanning it wouldn't do any good.
 
Tried installing as 2nd drive in my main rig, no luck. It says drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?

Am I totally screwed? I have just rebuilt my main rig in the last month, and everything I needed saved, I backed up to this hard drive that now has a virus.
 
Read the virus description again.

The payload says the followin:


All other sectors of the hard disk will be overwritten with random bytes, wiping out all information on the hard disk. The Trojan also attempts to do the same to the floppy drives.
Click to expand...

The payload has been activated and yes the drive is pretty much gone (sorry 🙁 ).

Take my advice and do a nice clean low level format (gets the boot sector as well so there is no chance that the virus will survive it) and you should be good to do 😉
 
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