Strange problem with files

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bornlivedie

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2013
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So, basically, I'm having a few strange problems with my computer. I'll explain:

A few months ago, I was listening to some music using Winamp and a song started playing, but not from the beginning, more like the middle of it, and to complictea matters more, the title's track did not coincide with the music. After a few seconds, that part of the song ended and some other one started playing, without changing tracks.

I checked my playlist, and a new file was created, I played it, and it was the same as before, parts of two songs in the same music file.

This happened at least two more times, using totally differents players and recently formatted operating systems (I format once every two months or so).

Today, It happened with video files. I download Star Trek The Original Series a few weeks ago but deleted it after some time. A few hours ago I decided to download a movie, and when I saw the folder containing it, something caught my attention. The thumbnail showed Captain Kirk (from Star Trek, just in case) and when I opened it, It was a segment from one episode of Star Trek.


It can't be a software problem because it's happening with music and video files, using differents players for each thing, and can't be Windows, because I format my HDD regularly.

My RAM is ok, memtest86+ showed no problems for more than 12hours, I'm not experiencing problems extracting or compressing large files, installing large software, etc.

HD Tune says my HDD is ok, so I don't know that could be causing this.
 
denis280

denis280

Diamond Member
Jan 16, 2011
3,434
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Welcome to the forums bornlivedie. what OS are you using and what is your AV.
 
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C1

Platinum Member
Feb 21, 2008
2,386
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The problem description sounds like something is damaging or corrupting your media files. A possibility is some nefarious DRM, but I dont think so. Sounds and acts more like malware (eg, some kind of worm).

Recommend to immediately make your media folders read only and backup all media to DvD/CD optical media so that any malware will not be able to propagate on the backed up files. You may have to go thru each backed up file to verify its integrity before copying it back onto a known uncontaminated system.
 
Ketchup

Ketchup

Elite Member
Sep 1, 2002
14,559
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The way you talk about downloading movies and your situation makes me think you have a clever little virus in your hands.
 
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bornlivedie

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2013
16
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ketchup79 said:
The way you talk about downloading movies and your situation makes me think you have a clever little virus in your hands.
Click to expand...

Hardly think so, no.

I don't go to google and search for "harry potter download" and click every link I see until one works.

It's not a virus or a spyware. Plus, as I said before, this happened 3 times and under different circumstances. New OS, fresh installations of everything, etc. Movies are always .mkv files, I don't see how you can infect a non executable file without being too obvious. I always use trusted sources and respected sites. And please, don't act like you don't donwload music and movies from the internet. I'm not condoning it, but seriously, don't be so self-righteous.

I know the general rule generally is "the guy must be a complete moron" but trust me, this is not the case. I might ignore certain things, but virus and how to keep my computer safe is not one of them.

I'm 90% sure that this is hardware related, and I'm blaming my HDD. Thing is, according to HD Tune, it's in perfect condition. Maybe you guys know a way to fully test it.
 
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Fardringle

Fardringle

Diamond Member
Oct 23, 2000
9,200
765
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Did you run the long Error Scan on the drive, or just the Benchmark test? If there are no errors on the Error Scan test, then it's a pretty good bet that the drive is OK and something else is causing the problem. If the drive passes the Error Scan, try running MEMTEST over night to make sure it's not a RAM problem.

It's actually quite easy to infect media files. There are quite a few different viruses that are designed specifically to do that.
 
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bornlivedie

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2013
16
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Fardringle said:
Did you run the long Error Scan on the drive, or just the Benchmark test? If there are no errors on the Error Scan test, then it's a pretty good bet that the drive is OK and something else is causing the problem. If the drive passes the Error Scan, try running MEMTEST over night to make sure it's not a RAM problem.

It's actually quite easy to infect media files. There are quite a few different viruses that are designed specifically to do that.
Click to expand...

Error scan was ok, two times.

memtest was ok, almost 14 hours

One avira analysis coming right up for you guys.

EDIT: 0 detections. Can we please move on now?
 
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denis280

denis280

Diamond Member
Jan 16, 2011
3,434
9
81
bornlivedie said:
no antivirus or any other similar software installed
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Not a good thing.
C1 said:
Sounds and acts more like malware
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Yes
ketchup79 said:
The way you talk about downloading movies and your situation makes me think you have a clever little virus in your hands.
Click to expand...
i think the same
Fardringle said:
It's actually quite easy to infect media files. There are quite a few different viruses that are designed specifically to do that.
Click to expand...
and agree.I would doubles check all those files and do a clean install
 
Matt1970

Matt1970

Lifer
Mar 19, 2007
12,320
3
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bornlivedie said:
Hardly think so, no.

I don't go to google and search for "harry potter download" and click every link I see until one works.

It's not a virus or a spyware. Plus, as I said before, this happened 3 times and under different circumstances. New OS, fresh installations of everything, etc. Movies are always .mkv files, I don't see how you can infect a non executable file without being too obvious. I always use trusted sources and respected sites. And please, don't act like you don't donwload music and movies from the internet. I'm not condoning it, but seriously, don't be so self-righteous.
Click to expand...

You making a whole lot of infrences from ketchup's one sentence. And no, we are not acting like nobody here knows about illegal downloads. Infact the majority of us here probably know enough about them to know the site you are going on to search for stuff probably is infected. Come back to that site with a freshly installed OS and you can get instantly get infected again. That's how they operate. There is no such thing as a trusted source or a respected site when it comes to downloads like that.
 
Steltek

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,312
1,053
136
Matt1970 said:
You making a whole lot of infrences from ketchup's one sentence. And no, we are not acting like nobody here knows about illegal downloads. Infact the majority of us here probably know enough about them to know the site you are going on to search for stuff probably is infected. Come back to that site with a freshly installed OS and you can get instantly get infected again. That's how they operate. There is no such thing as a trusted source or a respected site when it comes to downloads like that.
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+1

In fact, it wouldn't be a bad idea to run a rootkit killer like Kaspersky's tdsskiller or Malwarebytes' anti-rootkit beta product before you do your antivirus scan. Rootkits are all the rage on those types of websites, and they are very difficult if not impossible to detect by antivirus software while they are running. Plus, the rootkits usually serve as an eventual back door to get all sorts of other nasty software onto your system.

The reason we are questioning things is that you are stating that only your media files are affected. Generally, hardware problems don't discriminate - a hardware problem that is scrambling the contents of your media files will also scramble every other type of file at some point. This includes system files, which will eventually render your system non-bootable. Your system isn't doing this, so we have to presume something else is going on. This in turn leads us to suspect a malware infection.

Another thing you could check is to see if your Windows installation media has become corrupt (i.e. the next time you install, download a new ISO from Digital River instead of using your old one). Also, when you reinstalled, did you totally wipe your hard drive (including partition tables) and recreate the partitions or just reinstall on the same drive? Some malware infects the partition table and can thus come right back after a new install.

Finally, are you installing any external codecs? If so, depending upon where you got them, it is possible to pick up an infection if you happen to run a codec installation program that is itself infected.
 
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bornlivedie

Junior Member
Sep 6, 2013
16
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Matt1970 said:
With your attitude I could care less.
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I could say the same about your attitude "oh look he's downloading illegal stuff, he's infected, he's a noob!"

"Downloads like that"... pffff.

Come back when you grow a little more brain.

John Connor said:
Are you using certain codecs? Have you tried Windows Media Player? In Windows 7 those files should play natively.

I know you scanned with Avira, but I would burn Bitdefender to CD and scan the computer. http://www.raymond.cc/blog/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=1241
Click to expand...


No codecs, just MPC-HC x64.


Anyways, this is more about the music files than the video ones.

As the person here requesting help, I would suggest you be a bit nicer to the people taking time out of their days to try to help you. At this point suspecting malware is perfectly reasonable given what you describe, and acting out after being told so only drives other people away.
-ViRGE
 
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Smoove910

Golden Member
Aug 2, 2006
1,235
6
81
yup, was gonna offer some advise... but on 2nd thought, OP appears to be 'all knowing', so I'll move along.

Good luck!
 
pandemonium

pandemonium

Golden Member
Mar 17, 2011
1,777
76
91
I'll bite.

So, having faith that you're indeed free of any malicious software, do you have another HDD you can use to test if it is the HDD? I hate recommending any action of possibly spreading infection to new hardware, but you seem pretty confident that is not the case here, so let's roll with that.

Also, do you know the make/model of the HDD in question and see if there is anyone else out there with similar issues? Tried a different connection port? What MoBo make/model and version of BIOS installed?
 
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