Virus symptoms perhaps?

General Topics
41

Whether it’s a virus or not is imho unimportant at this stage, as the most urgent item is to get a backup of the data

Enter the BIOS while booting, do auto-detecting of hard disk(s): confirm&note the offered settings

Boot with the XP-Setup-CD, got to repair → Console
then enter:

Fixmbr [ENTER]
fixboot [Enter]

(maybe you have to search the CD first to see where these tools are located, i.e. path/folder)

then try reinstalling WIN into the existing partition (NO deleting/repartitioning, nor formatting)

What happens exactly ?

any error messages or “success” messages during fixing or installing ?

42

Fixmbr:

Caution
This computer appears to have non-standard or invalid master boot record.

FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed.

This could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible.
Are you sure you want to write a new MBR?

said no…as I have no idea what it is… ::slight_smile:

43

ask her, if the data is really worth backing up:

if so,

  • get Knoppix or
  • as said above, plug the harddisk as slave in another PC and
    backup her data

if not, go ahead… Risk of data loss !!

do you know if she indeed has an unusual/non-Standard MBR/partitioning ?
Bootloaders, multiboot-system ?

or try Bootable AV-media, e.g. BART-CD or AV-Bootdisks (see below)
those need to be made on a clean PC, of course…

maybe they’ll find an MBR/Bootvirus

44

Your AV boot disk link is dead. :cry:

45

Things are getting a little too technical for me now…think it’s time to concede…and leave it to the experts to sort out,but it was fun trying… ::slight_smile:

Do not understand the partioning message…as far as I know all was a standard setup with this pc… :slight_smile:

46

AV boot link is dead? can you please explain so I will know for future reference…thank you all for all your help… :slight_smile:

47

http://www.tucows.com/preview/345398.html… when the poor pc is died… some resuscitation is still possible! But is the extreme solution. ;D

48

Thank You… :smiley:

49

I’m too lazy for read all this topic :-[ and I don’t know if you tried this: boot the pc → F8 → now the screen is black with white strings of charachters: using the arrow keys, you must select “use last valid configuration” (or similar 'cause i have italian language on my pc).

50
AV boot link is dead? can you please explain so I will know for future reference

Sorry:

The link in Whocares’ signature in the posting immediately before mine.

It has expired, it has ceased to be, it has gone to meet its maker. It’s kicked the bucket, it’s shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisibile! It is an ex-link.

http://orangecow.org/pythonet/resting2.gif

51

lol…basically…it’s kerputt…spoke to Elaine it’s going to shop tomorrow…nothing to play with now… ;D

52

Well it’s gone to the doctors now, whilst it’s there it is having an upgrade, an extra 512 ram, cd rewriter, Avast and Zone Alarm put on (they usually install Panda) retrieve her documents and reinstall XP with SP2…£95

The techie seemed to think with all the spyware that was on there (113 hits) when I removed it, it may have taken some of the windows files out…apart from any virus that were lurking in there…thanks a lot to everyone who tried to help… :slight_smile: