Virus problem ?

colt1911

colt1911

New Member
My friend brought her pc by for me to look at since she was having problems with it. After checking it out I 'm pretty sure that she has a virus. The pc reboots over and over with no end. It gets to the windows xp home screen flashes a blue screen then restarts. I have tried to boot into safe mode with no luck. I've even tried to do a repair through the recovery console but she does not know what the password . She has some family photos that she wants to save so at this time I do not want to reformat unless all else fails. Anyone that can advise me please help.
 
Did your friend provide a recovery disk or full version installation disk to perform a repair install of Windows? Besides a virus there could have been damage to the boot information or system files from a bad install of a new program? But if you can get to into the Windows F8 menu there's one method to try out before assuming the worst. Even with a fresh installation of Windows you do not have to wipe the drive but simply delete the current installation.

But let's repair methods first. The safe mode/command prompt only option provides a means to use the system restore feature there by starting that manually with a simple command entered. The way you see the command wiis how to type that in and press the enter or return key to see if a restore point can help.
%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

When the calendar comes up if it does see if you can use a restore point going back before the problems were first seen. The last known configuration that worked option is usually the first tried. But a restore point or repair install seems to be needed now. Once you are able to get Windows running you can sweep the system with different cleaners.
 
She did not have a recovery disk but I have a version of xp home. I can't even boot into save mode. I can get it to boot to my disk and get into recovery console but that is as far as it would let me go due to the fact that she can't remember the adminisrator password. This is an emachines pc if that helps. I hate it when people can't keep up with their passwords and important info. She's even lost the restore disk. Can a virus destroy a hard drive to the point that you can't reformat it?
 
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For eMachines your friend can contact their support staff directily for a link they will provide for downloading disk images. Those are then burned to cd-rs for restoring the original state of the drive to where it was when bought with the preinstalled OS. But the sales information, serial number, and other information has to be provided for that.

The other option is to buy a totally new installation disk and later download the drivers needed for the board from the download page seen at the support site. Without having a password for the administrator there's nothing more you can do except reinstall Windows and leave the password blank on the new administrator's account to avoid this mishap again. That should have been tucked away some place safe in case of problems like this.
 
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