damaged windows or a virus??

dade

Guys

have a strange problem on the laptop
basically the laptop loads XP fine and the user logs in, the background picture is displayed ok but no icons or task bar opens. now i can go to task manager and start explorer.exe and all the icons etc appear

i also tried last known good config and got the same result.

Same with safe mode it tries to go in but just hangs on a black screen with the arrow icon.

so i'm thinking some form of malware or virus or else a damaged windows file.

any thoughts?

anyone know of some form of AV i can put on USB and have it up to date an then just scan the laptop with it.

roryq

i would put Malwarebytes on a usb key and install it.. Run a full scan and that should give you a result if it has any malware on it

gamer

Sounds as if theres a virus ,its easier to just reinstall windows from the cd,or put in the winxp cd,use r,repair option.Can you try system restore.Or try safe mode f8, directory services restore.SDdoctor demo is good for scanning for maware as is prog in the previous post.Do full antivirus scan as soon as you can.

dade

I'll try maklware bites today, doing a diagnostic on the hard drive just in case there's a problem with a bad sector or something.

will a system restore remove any data on teh drive? coz some info for my thesis is on it and it'd be nice not to loose it. not teh thesis mind just some other readings i wanted to use so no major problem if i loose that but the wife might be a tad upset if here stuff is lost.

gamer

say you did a system restore on jan 27th,then any saved data,docs,mp3s after jan 27th is destroyed,lost,deleted, in my experience, if you reinstall windows no data is lost it,appears on the pc as windows ,in the original,my music,documents, folder, ie the new install will show up as windows 0,or windows 1 ,ie you,ll have 2 my videos,my music, my pictures, etc, you could use a linux live cd to backup the thesis ,and all documents to a usb drive BEFORE YOU REINSTALL windows.A LIVECD will boot up a live os from the cdrom, which has a grahical gui os with usb,sound, and mouse drivers built in.
ie your original windows and all documents will be left exactly where they are now ,but when you look in my music ,my pics all ,ll that ,ll be there will be sample mp3s ,pics installed by winxp cd in the NEW my music,my pics,my documents folders.all your old docs will be on drive c ,your hardrive ,you,ll just need to browse c hardrive to see them.
google alternative windows xp file browser ,download and install it, this will make it easier to backup your documents and the thesis.
if you ask nicely some1 on boards.ie will send you a free LINUX live cd .

BrokenArrows

dade wrote: »

Guys

have a strange problem on the laptop
basically the laptop loads XP fine and the user logs in, the background picture is displayed ok but no icons or task bar opens. now i can go to task manager and start explorer.exe and all the icons etc appear

i also tried last known good config and got the same result.

Same with safe mode it tries to go in but just hangs on a black screen with the arrow icon.

so i'm thinking some form of malware or virus or else a damaged windows file.

any thoughts?

anyone know of some form of AV i can put on USB and have it up to date an then just scan the laptop with it.

Check the following registry path

HKEYlocalmachine\software\microsoft\windowsnt\currentversion\winlogon

under winlogon make sure the shell entry has explorer.exe as the shell.