Need Help With Serious Virus/Spyware Problem

[soccermiles77]

Okay, how do I do that?

[Major_A]

Boot to the OS Disc and tell it to repair the install.

[soccermiles77]

I can't find a boot disk for my XP version. Is there anywhere I can get one? Or do I need the disc specific to the one I used to install?

[Major_A]

Just the same OS disc is fine. It doesn't have to be the exact one you used before.

[soccermiles77]

Is there a special thing I need to do to boot from that disk? I put it in and fired it up and it bluescreened me without prompting to boot from that disk

[Major_A]

Set the boot order in the BIOS. Make sure the 1st device to boot is your CD-ROM. Yes, it's still CD-ROM in the BIOS.

[soccermiles77]

Okay, I edited the BIOS to boot the CD drive first and got the repair install to work, but now it brings me to a DOS screen with "C:\WINDOWS>" on it. When i typed help to see a list of commands, it gave me this:

ATTRIB
BATCH
BOOTCFG
CD
CHDIR
CHKDSK
CLS
COPY
DEL
DELETE
DIR
DISABLE
DISKPART
ENABLE
EXIT
EXPAND
FIXBOOT
FIXMBR
FORMAT
HELP
LISTSVC
LOGON
MAP
MD
MKDIR
MORE
NET
RD
REN
RENAME
RMDIR
SYSTEMROOT
TYPE


any advice please? thanks

[Major_A]

Let the setup run until you are required to make an input. Tell it to install Windows. It will search for a previous installation and prompt you if you would like to repair it. Tell it yes.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

As mentioned before if you are running XP SP3 and repairing with XP SP1, SP2, vanilla, then it is a good idea to slipstream SP3 into the install. Basically go from the version you are running to the appropriate slipstreamed SP.
Autostreamer:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Syst ... amer.shtml
XP SP3
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

[soccermiles77]

When i try to boot from the disc and do the reparative install, it doesnt get past saying that there is 34 minutes remaining, even though i had left it running for hours.

[Major_A]

Clean the disc with a soft cloth and a little bit of water. Dry it off and try it again. Just might be dirty unless it's scratched up.

[soccermiles77]

I cleaned it throughly and it doesn't have many scratches, yet its still freezing at 34 minutes remaining.

[Major_A]

Are you going from the same SP on the drive as the one on the disc? Another stupid question, you are going from the same version right (i.e. XP Pro to XP Pro)?

At this point you might be better off doing this... take the drive that's in the infected PC. Hook it up to another working PC. Run spyware and virus scans on the infected drive and see if it will boot afterwards. If not pull the drive again, backup the files that you need, format the disc, and start over. I feel responsible for Kaspersky completely trashing your system and I apologize.

[soccermiles77]

No need to apologize. Without your help I would have simply been completely lost. My schedule is hectic this week, so I will get around to handling that hooking up the hard drive to another computer issue likely later on this week.

[Apoptosis]

You might want to try something like Bart's PE Builder to Make an Anti-Spyware and Rescue CD if you don't have easy access to another PC.

Bart's Preinstalled Environment (BartPE) bootable live windows CD/DVD - http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

An old guide - http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=secu ... ertutorial

[soccermiles77]

I've reached the end of the road in trying to fix this problem myself, and had to resort to taking my hard drive to the local PC repair shop to have them pull my music library and a few other important files off of there so I can reformat.

As far as reformatting goes, is there a way to reformat from the BIOS screen or do i need to use the boot disk?


Thanks to everyone who pitched in to help me with fixing my computer, I can't express my gratitude enough for all of your kindness.

[soccermiles77]

every time i try to boot from the boot disk, it resumes the repairitive install of XP that never finished.

[soccermiles77]

UPDATE: Made it to the command screen, but when I try and enter FORMAT C: and it asks me if im sure that i want to delete everything and i put in Y for the response, it just brings up another C:\WINDOWS> prompt. Any ideas?

[Major_A]

What are you installing now? You don't use the command screen to install Windows anymore (that died with Win ME). Instead of telling it to boot the recovery mode, let it run until it stops. Then choose the option to format the drive and install Windows.

[xstayxtruex]

when booting into a recovery disc with XP and on, it shouldn't take you to any command prompt, it should take you to a preliminary screen for formatting your HDD and installing windows, you'll recognize that it looks alot like this:
if not this exact thing.
Then after pressing enter that you would like to set up windows xp, it should change prompts to look like this:

To format, highlight your HDD of choice to house XP and choose option "D" to delete the partition, this doesn't completely format the HDD right off, but just readies it for installation. highlight the HDD or partition that you chose to format and press enter. afterwards it should look something like this:

choose NFTS and you can either choose to do a fast format or a regular slower format. it will then format the HDD or partition and then install windows.

although if you dont see anything like what i've mentioned at all, then i guess it's not helping you at all, lol.

[soccermiles77]

xstayxtruex, I messed around with it on my own and ended up doing what you suggested without seeing your response haha. Got Windows installed and everything, now my problem is just trying to find the model number for my mobo so I can get my network drivers installed and get internet back up. If anyone happens to know which model of ASUS mobo with the AM2 chipset has the X-wing looking starfighter at the bootscreen, I would greatly appreciate it haha.