Files have started to randomly vanish

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2007-03-16 03:02pm

Okay, I was just listening to A Twist in the Myth by Blind Guardian about half an hour ago. I closed the media player and left the room for a few minutes to go get food, and when I came back, I noted that the entire folder for the album was just gone. In fact, so were two other Blind Guardian albums in their entirety, and random tracks from the other ones had gone missing. I haven't checked the rest of my music yet, but this is fucking weird. I have CDs for the music, but most of the non-music sound files don't have backups, so if this problem is system-wide, I'm going to be pissed. Does anyone have any idea what could cause this? I'm starting a virus scan now.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2007-03-16 04:50pm

Are we talking about Mp3's stored on an HDD? Could be either a virus or a hardware failure.

Or some bugs in the partition table. Do a full system scan, should help you.

And make a backup.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2007-03-16 05:15pm

Virus scan came up clean. And yes, MP3s stored on a hard drive. If the drive is failing already I'm going to be pissed; this comp is barely six months old.

Post by **Dalton** » 2007-03-16 05:22pm

The RIAA is scanning your machine and deleting anything with a .mp3 extension.

White Haven · Post by **White Haven** » 2007-03-16 05:28pm

I had a blown IDE controller cause that before as well. Gave me a devil of a time figuring that one out on my home system, took me months.

RThurmont · Post by **RThurmont** » 2007-03-16 05:39pm

The RIAA is scanning your machine and deleting anything with a .mp3 extension.

I'm going to assume you're being facetious, although that would make an awesome Slashdot story.

BTW Rogue, for the record, what OS is this?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2007-03-16 06:03pm

Windows XP, Media Center edition.

atg · Post by **atg** » 2007-03-16 09:38pm

RThurmont wrote:
The RIAA is scanning your machine and deleting anything with a .mp3 extension.
I'm going to assume you're being facetious, although that would make an awesome Slashdot story.

BTW Rogue, for the record, what OS is this?

I remember hearing something about a virus 6 or so months ago that did indeed delete anything with an .mp3 extention, however I could be mixing it up with something else.

Resinence · Post by **Resinence** » 2007-03-17 12:37am

atg wrote: I remember hearing something about a virus 6 or so months ago that did indeed delete anything with an .mp3 extention, however I could be mixing it up with something else.

I don't know what AV you're using, but checking yourself can't hurt.

W32/Nopir-B is a worm for the Windows platform.

W32/Nopir-B will display an anti-piracy image on the screen when run. The worm will then delete all COM and MP3 files from the computer. The worm will also disable taskmanager, registry tools, and access to the control panel. W32/Nopir-B will also check for debuggers and may attempt to disable any such software that it finds.

W32/Nopir-B copies itself to <Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe, <Program Files>\Restore\<random name>.exe, <Program Files>\eMule\Incoming\AnyDVD 5.1.0.1 Crack+Keygen By Razor.exe.

W32/Nopir-B will create the following registry entries:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
Verif
<Program Files>\Restore\<random name>.exe

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
securw
<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\exefile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\batfile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\comfile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\scrfile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\piffile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\vbsfile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCR\vbefile\Shell\open\command

<Program Files>\Projects Visual Studio.NET\Nctrup.exe

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
NoControlPanel
1

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
DisableTaskMgr
1

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System
DisableRegistryTools
1

I see there also may be a problem when trying to remove the reg changes/files as it disables those functions. If you find those files and do indeed have the virus I'll search around for a way to remove it completely. But not wasting my time incase it's just a bad filesystem or something

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2007-03-17 02:10am

I have no files by any of those names and have shown no other symptoms.

The problem seems to be affecting songs on playlists that I've listened to today. Evidently, after I'm done with a playlist, everything on the list that I opened that I didn't listen to is discarded. At least, that's what happened to Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken by Hammerfall. Of course, there's also three whole albums that I didn't listen to that disappeared as well. Like I said, it appears completely random.

Edit: I found 'em. They were moved from the folder of metal music into the general My Music folder for some Godforsaken reason.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2007-03-17 11:18am

Your media player is probably setup to reorganize your files.

Post by **Dalton** » 2007-03-17 05:14pm

Did you download a new Windows Media Player update? Maybe that did it.

Tahlan · Post by **Tahlan** » 2007-03-17 10:43pm

Rogue9, what media player are you using?