Emergency help

[derekbutch]

I couldn't restart my computer in safemode, so I tried the bootsafe option in superantispyware - now my computer would not stop rebooting itself and I cannot get it to restart even in normal mode anymore without rebooting!!! I even tried shuting down all power and restart my computer completely but nothing worked. Please help!!!

 

[Kcircyrd]

What is your computer? Is it fairly new?
This is symptomatic of both hardware failures, and infestations. It might be more useful to know more about your system.

 

[ThexDarksider]

Does it restart normally, as if you clicked restart? Or it just goes black and back to BIOS?

 

[derekbutch]

I don't know what happened. I ran some malware programs and tried to boot into safemode and run again, but since that didn't work, I tried it with superantispyware's reboot safemode and that's what caused it into restarting over and over again. It just stopped loading when it gets to the Windows XP loading page, and then reboot itself. I restored my computer from an image file and now most of my drive data (desktop files) is gone. Is it still possible to recover some files using data recovery such as testdisk?
My computer is pretty old: Windows XP 2003, and it has been formatted so that any ghost reboot would return the drive into its original (beginning) state. Sorry I'm not sure about how to give more info as I am not very tech-savvy so I'll have to be guided...

Please help. Thank you very much!

 

[derekbutch]

Update:

Kcircyrd: Is it really due to hard drive failure? Did I have some hidden damage that I didn't know about? The guy who set up my computer said that it's highly unlikely that it's my hd, but more likely software since I had that weird symptom...

I'm basically just worried about hard drive damage as well. Is there anyway I can know and recovery my data? Thanks.

 

[Kcircyrd]

Very knowledgeable techs can recover your data. Otherwise, professionals can recover at a price.
Suggest you get another drive, format and install it, and save this damaged drive for somebody good to work on... if the data is valuable.

 

[ThexDarksider]

I would download Damn Small Linux or another minimalist distro of Linux and put in on an USB pen drive, then boot from it and put all of the important files to the pen drive itself. If your HDD is ok, there should be no errors.

Else, get a SATA/IDE to USB converter and connect your old HDD to a PC like a flash drive and simply transfer everything.

In any case, good luck.