The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

[ryoran109]

I recently installed Vista, and soon after, I keep getting notifications popping up saying that [insert program here] has detected that my boot drive (C:) is corrupted and unreadable. I have no problems with any of the files on the disc, and CHKDSK came up with no problems. The disc manager says the drive is "Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)." These notifications have become more common, however, and it has gotten to the point where I am unable to install anything, and I get an error message saying something like "Your disc is corrupted," or "The Directory could not be created. I am also having problems with some programs not finding certain DLL files.

What's going on?

P.S.: I am also unable to install Update for Windows Vista (KB941649) and 2007 Microsoft Office Suite Service Pack 1. I get the error message "8007007B." Could this be a related problem?

[Deleted090308]

Hi

First thing that comes to mind is malware infection.

Scan your computer for spyware/virus.

If you find malware you can't get rid of:

Please follow the 5 steps here: http://www.techsupportforum.com/secu...oval-help.html

Post the logs in a new thread here: http://www.techsupportforum.com/secu...this-log-help/

[ryoran109]

I just checked with Spybot and AVG Free. Everything's clean.

Before I installed Vista, though, I had some problems with a Smitfraud that I wasn't able to get rid of. But that would have resided in my Windows XP directory, which I deleted.

[Deleted090308]

I'm not so sure the computer is clean.

Please follow the instructions above to make sure.

[ryoran109]

None of those steps returned anything, and I have stopped receiving notifications about my corrupted boot drive. However, I am still unable to install those updates. After some searching around, I found out that my error code (0x8007007B) means STIERR INVALID DEVICE NAME. Anyone know what that means?

[joedelaney]

I'm sure that "Stierr" is something to do with Spybot SD or something similar. Anyway, that error message means that System Restore is trying to locate files that are now moved/removed. There is quite a good fix on the Dell Support Forum for this one here:

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...40A68F5B2844E1

Good luck!

[ryoran109]

Well, there was nothing unusual checked off there, just my C: drive. But I checked off my other hard drive and it worked fine. So the update works now, thanks.

But it still doesn't explain what's going on with my hard drive. Why didn't it work when only C: was checked off?

[joedelaney]

Because System Restore uses all of your disks to properly record snapshots of your PC, it seems that it was looking for something to do with Spybot that was still on your other drive. System Restore ALWAYS needs to be COMPLETELY TURNED OFF to correct problems such as this.