Black screen on boot, no beeps..

Basq

Hi all,

Am trying to clean up a terrible infected PC.. it has that troublesome RPC Blaster Explot (http://www.mvps.org/marksxp/WindowsXP/rpc.php) but the machine is in absolute sh*te.

By this, I mean the owners installled 2 versions of the OS (folder 'Windows') and (folder 'Windows1') and have required data in both versions of the OS.

One version of the OS boots, though that RPC error comes up (which I can prevent shutting down by running 'shutdown -a') but installing anything USB devices or anything results in it basically locking up, so backing up to a USB disk is outta the question. Safe mode is also more or less a no go.

The other version of the OS boots into XP, but that's as far as it goes. No desktop icons (etc) - I try to launch 'explorer.exe' and nothing happens.

So tried to boot up earlier on and got a 'Read disk error. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete to restart' but fixed that after simply restarting a few times. But now, I'm getting a black screen.. no beeps.. no indication or anything. Can view the bios and that's about it. Tried removing the CMOS battery for a while but it's the same. Any suggestions?

Obviously the disk is on it's way out but the black screen is odd. Anyone any thoughts?

Basq

Oh.. and tried re-seating the RAM. Nothing!

EKRIUQ

First Answer

Have you tried booting the machine without the disk attached or a different disk

could be a motherboard issue. You will also get no beeps without a working CPU

Basq

Cheers namesco. Much appreciated!

Very annoying problem as it happened all of a sudden with no warning.

Basq

Namesco wrote: »

First Answer

Have you tried booting the machine without the disk attached or a different disk

Booting the machine without a disk attached gives me a "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" message.

The only spare drive I have (own laptops mainly) is a corrupt one from my brother's PC. When I boot into that, I get the prompt that 'Windows did not shut down successfully' and prompts me to choose between Safe Mode, Last Known Configuration That Worked etc. So when I choose Safe Mode, it starts to list the system files it's loaded (as safe mode typically does) but then fails on a file and shuts down. But at least I'm getting an actual process of something happening with that.. not a blank blank screen. Should this indicate the motherboard is functioning?

Basq

Phew..

OK, I took the plunge and tried to install another OS. I know.. it'll be 3 installed at that point but a fresh OS was worth a try. The only one I had was Vista Home Edition so installed it on the exact same disk (obviously when it prompted me to back up the previous one, I did).

But it seemed to have worked. Obviously the previous OS was just seriously fecked because Vista seems to be running without problem. Now I'm just recovering the 'Documents And Settings' from the previous installs of the OS, which it put under a 'Windows.old' folder.

But once this is finished, I'm formatting that drive.. cleaning it up and doing a clean re-install of their OS (which I believe is Windows XP Media Center).

So wasn't even a motherboard / RAM / CPU issue after all that... bit of a relief!

EKRIUQ

A few more suggestions,

Do you have a restore CD or an XP Install Disc? You might be able to fix the problem by just reinstalling, as long as you don't mind losing your data.

Does the BIOS you can get into allow you to change the boot order so you can boot from a CD?
That would at least allow you to use a bootable environment capable of reading NTFS (such as BartPE) to explore the disk while the infection wasn't active.

Arer the user profiles password protected? If not then all of the files should be visible so you can get your clients to identify the data they want recovered. I would agreed with the first post though. Get the drive into another machnie as a slave and explore and move files from there using the (unaffected) active partition to support your USB recovery destination

.

what i wouild do is do a complete backup and full install; after the backup i would test ram and disk
ram - use memtest86+ from www.memtest.org
disk - pick the one you need from : http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

Basq

Cheers Namesco.

Like I said, it's not my PC.. I'm fixing it up for someone. The 2 versions of the OS installed on it were XP Media Center Edition so am gonna have to ask the owners for that disc, as I only have a Home and a Professional disc.. and license on it is for XP MCE.

I got off the most important data (Documents and Settings folders) while booted in Vista.. so once I get the XP MCE disc, I'm gonna just do a format of the disc and re-install a clean version of the OS (and restore the data I got off it).

Thanks for posting it on Experts Exchange again.. really must invest in a membership there though I work day in, day out with software and hardware. So normally am pretty on the ball with this sorta stuff.. but this stumped me quite a bit.

EKRIUQ

Good you got it fixed, Experts Exchange is a bit of a rip off but It helped me fix my computer that 2 shops could'ent, so I'll try it out for a while until the value of fixing my computer is paid then I'll probably ditch it.

MunsterCycling

Could have mounted it read only on a linux machine and copied the files over with no chance of infecting the *nix box, or even mounted it on a WIN box using a usb ide/sata adaptor and doing same but with much higher risk of cross-contamination.


MC

AlmightyCushion

If you need an mce install disk, let me know. I have one you can borrow.

Basq

Cheers all. PC is now fine.. there was actually a recovery partition on it from Compaq that had the OEM version of the XP MCE OS on it, but I had problems booting into it.

But when I wiped off the Vista I installed (to get the data off) and reinstalled a clean version of XP Pro which repaired the initial XP boot sector and allowed me to boot into the recovery partition. So I then formatted the drive once again completely and installed the OS from the partition.

Bing bang bosh.. done!

I've dealt with hundreds of computers, and clean viruses / spyware / adware professionally in my job. Never had I see a computer in worse shape than this. But there was no point in trying to clean it.. so a format and reinstall of the OS did the trick wonderfully.

EDIT: I also found out that before it was given to me, a quite reputable computer repair company in Sligo had it.. not saying who. But their solution was to install that second OS on the same partition. Unbelievable.. bunch of fecking cowboys made more work for me! :mad: