Hello. Last night I was installing some VPN software from my university to access university resources from off-campus. When the software finished installing, it required a restart. When I did this, the computer will only boot up to the point of saying "Intel Pentium 2.4 ...." and the next line i believe is supposed to say "memory" and how much there is, but all it will say is "mem" or "memo" and then not go further.

I talked to the computer help desk at the university, and they believe it was a virus that had been lying dormant until i restarted (which had been a couple days) and it was just coincidence that i restarted and installed the VPN client.

Does anyone have any info?? Also, under the assumption that it is a virus, how do i go about fixing this problem?? Almost all of my important information is on another hard drive, so formatting the HD is not the end of the world, but I'd rather not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

can you get into safe mode at all? or does the thing lock up before that? how about bios? do you have an xp cd? (not a recovery cd..but an actual OS cd?)

it locks up before i can get into safe mode. and yes i have my original operating system cd

good (i'm currently doubting that this is a virus...because there are VERY few that will affect anything before windows loads)...so let's do step

#1
boot to the xp cd and choose the R option for recovery console...once there type chkdsk /r and let that run to completion (usually 45 min or so) without distrubing it. report any errors

once done see if you can get into windows if not

#2
Boot up with the XP CD in the drive and let Setup run. Go past the "C" and "R" repair options by presssing Enter just as if you're doing a clean install and you'll eventually get an option to "Repair an existing installation". That's the one you want. If it asks about formatting you've gone wrong, so start over.

You'll get to keep your existing apps & settings, but you need to re-install SP2, Windows Updates & any unsigned drivers afterwards. NOTE: Be aware that you'll lose any protection from Blaster / Sasser type worms. Don't go online without a firewall, whether the built in Windows one or 3rd party.

How to Perform A Re-Install Of XP
Repair XP

Hey when i put the xp cd in, it won't even boot up from the cd.....one of my friends mentioned could a hard drive or my memory be fried?

it's possible...did you go into bios and change the boot order to have the cdrom first on the list?

how do you get into the bios?

usually either f2 or del during boot up (there should be a message on the screen that says "press <something> to enter setup" during boot you wanna press whatever <something> is)

yeah it says "press DEL to enter SETUP" and the delete key doesn't do anything

it should......you're not holding it down are you? just press it....are any of the light's coming on on your keyboard? (is this a usb or ps/2 keyboard?)

PS/2 keyboard....but the num lock, caps lock, scroll lock lights will not come on

hmm...they should at least flash during the first part of startup...(may not work but) do you have access to a usb keyboard?

oh sorry...they flash right when i turn the comp on...but after it gets to where it stops booting you cannot "turn on the lights"....and right now i don't have a usb keyboard handy.....i maybe could start talking to friends and come up with one.......

regardless of windows or hard drive corruption you SHOULD still be able to get into the bios...start pressing del once a second as soon as y ou turn the thing on.

ok finally got delete to work....now the bottom said "entering setup....." but it looks to have locked up there