I'm currently dealing with multiple problems which seem to have increased so much today that I'm no longer able to logon to xp.
Explanation from the beginning (apologies for the lengthy post, it's a complex problem):
Have been trying various different things for about 6 hours.
Now I'm using minixp on Hiren's boot CD to scan with avast... quite successfully so far.. managed to find a virus TR/ATRAPS.gen - deleted what I found in system32 - now scanning the full system disc.
So, I've basically got two problems - I think:
1: An unpleasant virus of some sort which is causing my computer to freeze when anything comes anywhere near it - be it viewing the folder, or attempting to scan it.
2. Having had to press the reset buttom so many times (probably 100 in the past month) without properly shutting down has done some sort of damage to the way my computer boots up. To the extent that it currently refuses to go past the black xp loading screen.
....and I've no idea what to do!
I have another machine - windows 7 - which I think (I hope?) I can plug the hard drives into - to rescue the data... so it's not the end of the world. However, I love this machine very dearly, and would really like to be able to save it. I'm not interested in formating and re-installing xp - because I don't need the hardware, the windows 7 machine is vastly superior... it's more about all the little customisations on all the editing software, and the many installed programs which I've no idea where the licenses are to reinstall... - and the annoying thing is that it's actually a really fast, well behaved machine when it isn't being frozen.
Help? Please?
Explanation from the beginning (apologies for the lengthy post, it's a complex problem):
- Started about a year ago - random bsods and failure to load xp - just a black screen after the 'xp loading' part.. sometimes I'd manage to get to the logon screen and get into my account - only to crash the moment the desktop loaded, and I clicked on anything... somehow managed to fix it by disabling kaspersky and running only in diagnostic startup mode.
- This worked fine for ages - but I wasn't running anti virus software. Eventually got some sort of browser hi-jacker virus, re-enabling my old version of kaspersky just caused it to crash again, used a trial version for a bit - but didn't manage to complete full scans. Firefox hijacked, so if I even searched 'anti virus' I'd get re-directed somewhere else - downloaded chrome on another machine, installed it, and have been contentedly able to browse ever since. Removed a few viruses with malware, spybot, adaware - removed kaspersky, bought and installed norton - but have not been able to successfully complete a full system scan.
- It'll scan - find a virus - but the moment I click anywhere on the screen it'll freeze... the curser will continue to move but the system clock will have stopped at the time I clicked... if I click about 5 more times, the curser freezes and system has to be reset. Norton has no record of detecting any viruses.
- This has been getting worse and worse in the past month - and I've been having increasing problems getting past the boot-up screen. Just a black screen after the xp loading screen. I reboot about 5 times, using different combinations of 'normal startup' and 'last known good' cross my fingers, stroke the computer, whisper 'please' and sometimes it gets to the blue login screen... if I type very cautiously and count to 7, then click logon, sometimes the desktop loads... if I leave it by itself too long, it freezes... but if I watch it and wait until all the taskbar items have loaded and are happilly running - then it's absolutely fine to run, no problems (I do a lot of image and video editing - no crashes what so ever, despite using high cpu)... but if I leave it over night, norton starts to scan.. when I come back in the morning it'll have frozen at some point.
- That was the problem until today: This morning I managed to get past boot, logon and onto the desktop - Norton managed to quietly crash it... I managed to get it back, eventually - decided it might be something to do with graphics drivers - so installed the ati catylist control centre for my particular graphics card (Asus eah4650).
- Rebooted - decided to scan the system32 folder for viruses... freeze.. crash, attempt to reboot. Fail to get normal system back.
- Run safe mode with command prompt... gets in fine... run chkdsk - freezes at second part...(checking indexes)... reboot...
- attempt to run safemode with networking - freezes at Mup.sys
- Use old windows disc (slipstreamed version of xp pro with sp2)... hope it'll repair... manage to get it to run chkdsk on windows start - it does this, hangs on stage 2 for about 10 minutes - but eventually completes and reboots... doesn't say anything about errors (not sure if normally would)... but still fails to get past black screen.
Have been trying various different things for about 6 hours.
Now I'm using minixp on Hiren's boot CD to scan with avast... quite successfully so far.. managed to find a virus TR/ATRAPS.gen - deleted what I found in system32 - now scanning the full system disc.
So, I've basically got two problems - I think:
1: An unpleasant virus of some sort which is causing my computer to freeze when anything comes anywhere near it - be it viewing the folder, or attempting to scan it.
2. Having had to press the reset buttom so many times (probably 100 in the past month) without properly shutting down has done some sort of damage to the way my computer boots up. To the extent that it currently refuses to go past the black xp loading screen.
....and I've no idea what to do!
I have another machine - windows 7 - which I think (I hope?) I can plug the hard drives into - to rescue the data... so it's not the end of the world. However, I love this machine very dearly, and would really like to be able to save it. I'm not interested in formating and re-installing xp - because I don't need the hardware, the windows 7 machine is vastly superior... it's more about all the little customisations on all the editing software, and the many installed programs which I've no idea where the licenses are to reinstall... - and the annoying thing is that it's actually a really fast, well behaved machine when it isn't being frozen.
Help? Please?
