[AmpFiddler]

Hi! I'm new and it's so nice to find this forum. Hoping I can get some help because I'm at wit's end. Don't know a lot about computers or terminology, so I apologize for that in advance!

I had to do a full system restore on my computer because of weird problems occurring after I was hacked. It restored fine, but then when it came on it said, "NTLDR is compressed. Press ctrl alt del to restart." I did do some research and found this:

First you need to boot to the recovery console.

To boot to the recovery console follow these steps:
1. Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer. Click(or press any key) to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted.
2. When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
3. When prompted type "1" or if you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the Recovery Console.
4. When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
5. Now you should be at the comman prompt and ready to repair the ntldr file!

Now all you need to do is enter the following commands(in order) and each command on a new line just like you see them here:
Code:

cd \
attrib -c ntldr
exit


Your computer should now reboot, and everything "should" work!

I made sure that in BIOS it was set to boot from CD/DVD drive and I restarted. But I didn't get a Welcome to Setup screen and when I press R there is no option to type anything. It only goes to the Gateway Full System Restore panel, and I can only click one of the two options. So clearly I'm missing a step, but don't now enough about computers to figure out what that is. Please help?

Oh, and I have a laptop, Windows XP 2005 Media Center Edition. Gateway.

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First of all, if your computer was infected, System Restore does NOT cure infections.
Secondly, can you boot into Windows at all?
Then, what exact CD are you using? Is it Windows CD?

[Broni]

First of all, if your computer was infected, System Restore does NOT cure infections.
Secondly, can you boot into Windows at all?
Then, what exact CD are you using? Is it Windows CD?

[AmpFiddler]

First of all, if your computer was infected, System Restore does NOT cure infections.
Secondly, can you boot into Windows at all?
Then, what exact CD are you using? Is it Windows CD?

Hi there! Thank you so much for trying to help! And to be honest, I don't know if it was infected. It's been doing this thing for a few weeks where if I turned it off, it wouldn't always restart the first time. The lights would flash like it was starting, but the screen stayed black and eventually the lights would go off and I'd have to force quit. I'd have to do this two or three times before Windows would boot, but once it did everything was fine.

And as far as the hack, I honestly don't know if that was it at all. Actually I suspect I broke the computer myself when in response to the hack and my co-worker suggesting he got in through remote desktop, which I'd had on, I went to Services and disabled everything that had the word "remote" in it. (Dumb. I know this now!) He hacked me and I disabled all the remote stuff on the same day when things started being funny. Like, my internet wouldn't connect, I couldn't uninstall or delete anything, couldn't open media files, et cetera. And then it started getting worse and things started to disappear, like everything listed under my services, for instance. Sorry for the long explanation. So I don't know if it's infected or if this was coming anyway since the computer is older.

And no, I can't boot into Windows at all. The screen I get says Press F11 to start recovery (it didn't say this before now), and then the NTLDR is compressed message and to restart. And the CD is a Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 System Recovery CD/DVD. I just got off the phone with gateway and the guy was telling me I could get a recovery CD for $20. I thought that's what I had, but he said it must be corrupt.

[Broni]

Unfortunately, with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 System Recovery CD/DVD you can't perform any Windows repair.
All, it does, if used, it restores your computer to its original state - all data, and installed programs are lost.
To perform Windows repair, you need Windows XP CD, but it must be same Windows flavor (Media Center), and it must contain same Service Pack as installed on your computer.
You could do this with borrowed CD, but...
Unfortunately, it's impossible to slipstream SP2, or SP3 into Windows XP Media Center CD.
Your best bet, probably is to slave your HD in another computer to recover data, and then use your CD to reinstall Windows.

[AmpFiddler]

Ack, okay will do. Thank so much for the advice and have a great night!

[Broni]

You're welcome
Let us know, how it worked out.