Cannot boot Windows 2000 after post-boot scan moved critical files to chest

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi all,

I really hope someone can help me out of this mess I’ve found myself in with an old Windows 2000 laptop a relative gave to me tonight.

After Windows starts up, it kept coming up with vcrt80.exe related error boxes post-login.

I installed Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware, and it found 118 infected files on its scan which it allegedly cleaned. I rebooted, and the 2nd scan came up with 5. It kept coming up with these 5 files every time I rebooted and did another scan. I am kicking myself now as I didn’t write down the names of those files.

I decided to give up with that and downloaded/installed the very latest version of avast! Home as I’d heard good things about it. After installing, avast! Home asked me if I wanted to do a post-boot scan before Windows started up so I said yes. During this scan, it found some files infected with Win32:Parite which it couldn’t repair so I told it to move all to chest. Imagine my horror when the scan then moved to c:\windows\system32\winnt.exe & regedit.exe etc were all flagged as being infected and thus were automatically moved to the chest. By then, it was too late & I thought I might as well let the scan continue if winnt.exe had gone.

When I rebooted, Windows manages to get to just before the login box appears, and it then just reboots. This means I can’t boot up Windows any more, even in Safe Mode as it gets to the same point in the Windows startup process and then it reboots.

Is there any way at all I can boot off something and tell Avast to restore those infected files? Or could I boot from the Windows 2000 CD and tell it to repair the current installation i.e. replace files that have been moved out of c:\windows* etc?

I don’t care if the files in the chest are infected as all I need to do is get into Windows, backup her critical encrypted Outlook Express mail archives etc as well as some documents etc to memory stick which I’d then scan on another PC etc.

I’m really scared & I’ve buggered this laptop up & can’t recover her email archives etc :frowning:

Thanks for any & all help/advice!

DMTelf

2

I don’t know if Avast have something to offer from their perspective, but as a general Windows issue,
you can use the recovery console to extract files from the cdrom using the EXPAND command.
Look here for some idea’s.
http://thpc.info/dual/console.html

3

File infectors could be a nightmare. Which was your old antivirus, before avast?

  1. Overinstallation can solve the problem and you won’t lose your programs, settings, data, files, etc.
    Just choose ‘Repair’ installation of Windows and install ‘over’ the old installation.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314058
http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B315341&x=15&y=0
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

  1. Boot from a live CD (Linux) and backup the files you need. Maybe Kubuntu: http://www.kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/download
4

There wasn’t any AV on this laptop before I installed MalwareBytes AntiMalware and then Avast.

These MS KB links you gave are about repairing XP installations & this laptop has 2000, but I assume the principle remains the same?

I have also considered this & will try one of my LiveCDs if the Repair doesn’t work.

From the Avast perspective, is there no way of being able to e.g. boot off Avast BART CD & restore the files which were put in the chest by Avast Home back to their original locations…?

DMTelf

5

Hmmm… that’s a huge error…

Yes.

It should have this feature, I mean, the possibility of reaching Chest from outside. But it doesn’t.
We already ask a lot of times a feature like that when we can’t boot a computer.
But, in your case, with quarantined files really infected it won’t help. You’ll get infected all the time. This is useful when we have false positive detections.