Problem starting windows - caused by a virus?

simu

Can anybody help - something's up with my parents' computer - I don't know what happened to cause this - maybe it's some sort of virus.

What happens:

When you switch it on you get this message: "Windows did not start successfully - a recent hardware or software change might have caused this..."

Then it gives you a number of options:

Start in safe mode
Start in safe mode with networking
Start in safe mode with command prompt
Start with last known good configuration
Start windows normally

The problem is that none of these options work - whichever one you pick, windows tries to start but fails, the computer restarts and you return to the above menu.

Any idea what could be wrong here? any suggestions as to what I should do?

Thanks in advance!

KdjaCL

Whats the last driver windows loads?

In step by step it will hang on one of them.

Mup.sys by any chance?


kdjac

Champ

Ummm; never heard of this happening before. Could you give us any more details; anything that might help like the version of Windows; and anything suspect that could have caused this?

You say it tries to start; how far does it get?

Based on what you've said so far; i'm making a far flung guess that if all boot options are failing then the core Windows files has suffered some major damage; either through a virus or some hard disk sector failures.

Another possibility is that select critical bootup files like umm system.ini? might have been corrupted somehow....

To try to narrow down the possibilities i would nab a Windows 98 boot disk or any bootable floppy with some harddisk scanning capability like scandisk for example and do a basic scan.

Either way; having a boot disk handy will be necessary for either salvaging the system if its possible; or for doing a clean wipe install (shotgun solution) though its effectiveness might be called in question if indeed there's a virus lurking around.

simu

Version of Windows in XP Home edition.

I have no idea what caused this - my siblings insist they did nothing unusual with the pc but they could well be lying. Pesky kids!

You say it tries to start; how far does it get?

It displays the windows xp loading screen with the green bar for about three seconds, then it stops.

To try to narrow down the possibilities i would nab a Windows 98 boot disk or any bootable floppy with some harddisk scanning capability like scandisk for example and do a basic scan.

Don't have any! Where could I get this sort of thing?

Whats the last driver windows loads?

In step by step it will hang on one of them.

How do you mean?

Dman_15

this happened me yesterday and nothing would fix it. it would go to the windos loading screen and flick like it was going to show the logon screen but nothing would happen for about on minute until it blue screened and restarted. I tried everything to fix it bur had to use the xp disc and do a full repair like a reinstall.
on getting back int windows late last night i did a virus scan and found a virus, i cant remember its name which was probably the cause

sector

Hi,

There must be more info on the resulting bluescreen.

Write down as much as you can & post it

Thanks

T

jesus....the same thing happened to me Tuesday.

My laptop was working fine and then later that day I could not start windows (XP Home)

I continually got BSOD's....really nasty ones, saying someting different each time...I think one was BAD_POOL_ERROR.

It went away as suddenly as it came...

Dman_15

the virus was called worm/agobot.23.bs

The blue screen was non specific. sometimes had nothing at all on it. no .sys or anything like that

Champ

Well if it is the virus; the bright side is that you know what the problem is; and can take action to rectify it as soon as you have some operating system environment to work with... hopefully you won't be forced to reinstall XP.. :rolleyes:

Hmmm perhaps you can narrow it down from the loading screen with the bootlog?
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prmb_tol_rpsc.asp

As soon as you have the log generated persay; boot up with your bootdisk and access the log file with an editor like edit... i believe edit comes on most MS Windows boot disks? or at least some simple editor that can read text files? :dunno:; if not just copy it to a floppy and open the log on a PC that works Maybe that'll tell us on where the bootup procedure is flaming out and if we can salvage the current XP installation.

Oh yes look here for a bootdisk:
http://freepctech.com/pc/002/files010.shtml
There are a few of these sites around; so if none of these work / suit you do a search on google etc...

Good Luck

Hobbes

Ask your parents what they did before it started doing this.

Did they upgrade the machine to SP2? Did they download software? Did they mess with any settings?

What firewall, and patches are currently on it?

Try starting it up with bootlog.txt then restarting and pulling the bootlog.txt out and showing it here.

simu

I go over to my parents' house today, find out they've already sent the PC to a computer clinic and gotten it back. These guys just reinstalled windows, made no effort to see if any of the data on the pc could be saved and charged 75 euro for it. A bit dodgy, no?

Mutant_Fruit

waste of money if ya ask me. But too late now. I'd say just reinstalling windows WITHOUT formatting would have fixed you up fine. Too late now though.

sceptre

Originally posted by simu
I go over to my parents' house today, find out they've already sent the PC to a computer clinic and gotten it back. These guys just reinstalled windows, made no effort to see if any of the data on the pc could be saved and charged 75 euro for it. A bit dodgy, no?

Dodgy, I dunno. It's the standard routine for many of these guys. Which doesn't make it right.

I'd be more appalled if someone was getting file errors, sent it into somewhere where they just ran scandisk and charged that kind of money for it (though running scandisk might actually be more effort than just wiping and reinstalling)

Champ

Hmmm definetly dodgy; i'd say there was a good chance that the existing data could have been salvaged; i wonder if they even tried? I mean charging 75 Euros just to do that is.... :mad:

Definetly the most convenient if not ungainly solution to use; which i say should be reserved as a last measure.

Remember though that a re-install mightn't have terminated any virus that may have caused the original problem; believe me just read up a little on some of the more prominent viruses and you'd be surprised about their resilence... anything from actively moving to re-encoding themselves...:rolleyes:

Get some protection on and do a sweep asap before deja-vu may occur

decritic

Originally posted by KdjaC
Whats the last driver windows loads?

In step by step it will hang on one of them.

Mup.sys by any chance?


kdjac

I’m getting the exact same thing and yes it is hanging on Mup.sys on Safe mode, Have you seen this before and do you have a solution?

BloodBath

I had the exact problem a few months ago.

Windows xp would begin to load and would just restart and go to the menu screen giving the options, none of which worked.


Windows was just corrupt and repairing it with the xp disk sorted the problem with no lost files.


BloodBath

decritic

When I load the xp disk it doesn’t give me the option to repair or to press r to go into the repair console just to install which warms me that I’ll loose me personnel data which I’m not prepared to do.