InBox

By DON McALLISTER

Welcome to InBox, where we attempt to answer your internet questions.

Q. Michele's son's computer (a 486DX2/50) has lots of ***.CHK files on C drive and is playing up. What could it be?

A. Your hard drive is like a book that is losing its pages one by one, Michele, with data being corrupted byte by byte and then stored as .CHK files by scandisk.

As the box is now at least nine years old, I suggest you look for an early Pentium box - available on Trademe auctions for less than the $50 or more it will cost to replace the faulty component.

Q. John has a file called Adult - Chat.exe that appears on his desktop when Windows starts. Trashing it is no good as it returns on the next boot. Running a virus scan finds nothing.

A. It's a sneaky porn dialler, John. As you run ADSL you should be safe, but beware if you still use a modem for faxing. You may find it has dialled some obscure overseas 0900-type number. Check your next phone bill and pray this is not the case.

The file is being started from within your Windows Registry (a list of components that tells Windows where the files are or when to run them).

WARNING! Editing the registry should be done by qualified personnel. Inbox strongly recommends you take it to an expert, who will search for that file's entry and delete the offending key.

If it is trying to dial a 0190 number, try the 0190 dialler-removal program. Only shutdown seems to stop the loop.

Q. Dave is regularly caught in the dreaded Console loop - every time he tries to close a window, more pop up. He is not happy that he has to reboot the machine to stop them multiplying.

A. That's a common practice with adult sites, Dave, but you can stop them without rebooting. Hit the F4 button again and again until they stop.

In most cases, Adaware will stop this website trick.


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