System Check malware

I think I'm going to walk away for a while. If you have any suggestions leave me a note and I'll pick it up later. Thanks.

Hi Broni: Thank again for helping. I'm working on copying and creating the bootable cd with SP included but I've run into another hiccup. Following the link you provided I'm down to their second step in Copying and Extracting Files.

The second step is to navigate to where you downloaded the Service Pack 3 file.

Of course, this is a problem because I'm unable to boot now, so I can't navigate to where I downloaded the file to. Are you aware of an alternative? If I have another XP machine can I copy it from there?

I will continue to explore but wanted to send a note in case you had a quick n dirty answer.

Just to keep you updated..... I've tried downloading SP3 and it didn't like that, so I download SP2 and created the disc, etc., and it didn't like that either. When the machine boots now it is asking for "The file 'asms' on Windox XP Professional Service Pack 1 CD is needed."

The only downloads I've been able to find were for SP2 and SP3 and it doesn't seem to like those. The SP2 disc shows up with an ASMS folder, but I can't find an asms file anywhere. I've tried a variety of paths and it doesn't seem to want any of them.

I have a friend who has an SP2 cd that he has used before so he knows it's good. I'm going to pick it up from him later this morning and try it.

So, since my machine was XP Pro, SP3 and I'm doing a Repair, do I need SP3, SP2, or SP1 to continue the Repair? The machine is asking for SP1.

tried going through that but when I get to the part about finding the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\test\controlset1.... I find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\test with several entries but none of them are ControlSet...

ok - just did the steps again, found the controlset and deleted the upper and lower limits. still doesn't register a D: drive. tried doing Shift-F10 to get cmd prompt and doing 'dir x" with various drive letters. never did find cd. rebooting now

hopefully will get the "known good" cd soon, but shouldn't I be able to at least do a "Dir" and see what's on it, even if the speed was wrong?

I'm still stuck trying to finish the XP Repair. I've got (I think) a good SP2 cd, but when it gets to the screen asking for the ASMS folder it won't even attempt to read the "D" drive. If I do the shift-F10 and go to a prompt, "dir d:" brings "The system cannot find the path specified", which is the same msg as if I did "dir m:" or any other drive that doesn't exist. I have a 2nd HDD installed ("E") and if I do "dir e:" it shows a directly listing of it just fine.

I need to get it to recognize the cd drive so that I can continue but I don't know where to turn next.

Broni - I appreciate your help but it came down to nothing being recognized except "C". I wound up taking the "C" drive out and setting it up as a slave on another machine, copied what I needed off of it, and put it back in the original XP machine. After reinstalling it I did a fresh XP install, starting with formatting the drive. Windows is back up and running now I'm in the process of installing service packs. I'd say you can close this thread.