[terica]

My boyfriend downloaded a virus to our 556ge gateway desktop. I removed the virus using superantivirussoftware.com. When I ran the scan, It said viruses were quarantined and after that the computer restarted itself and with through the welcome screen as usual and then went to the screen that allows you to log on using different user accounts, in which we don't have. So when you click on administrator, it pretends like its logging on and then logs off immediately. And this happens when you click on it and not even enter a password, which we don't have. And after a while it goes to the screen that prompts you to enter a username and password which we don't have either. We never set up one. So we tried removing the cmos battery as the gateway techs told us to try and it didn't work. We can't get a restore disk from the manufacturer because the computer is out of warranty. Is there anything else we can try? Preferably free or low cost. And keep in mind that we can't even get into the computer to get to any kind of icon or start menu. Also I tried to press alt+ f10 at start up and that didn't work either. It went to a blue and gray screen and it didn't prompt any kind of restore or any way to change the settings. Please help!!!!!

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Hello terica.... Welcome to GeeksToGo,

I'm sorry to hear about your issue. We will try to help you resolve this as soon as possible.
Please understand we are all volunteers and we are not here all the time. Sometimes it may be a extended amount of time to get back to you. If it has been more then 3 days please shoot me a PM and I will try to get back to you quickly then.



Give this a try. Without knowing a little more about what caused the problem, I can't guarantee it will work...and it requires the machine you make the disk on AND the machine you are fixing are both running XP.

Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

First, we'll need to add a clean version of userinit.exe to the current RC.ISO

* In the upper right pane, double click on the i386 folder.
* Right click in the upper right pane and select Add Files...
* Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and select userinit.exe
* Then click Open to add userinit.exe to the CD image.
* Click File and select Save As...
* Name the file RCplus and save it somewhere you can find it.


Next, we'll need to burn the newly created image to a disk that we can use to fix the problem.

* Put a blank CD-R disk in your CD burner and close the tray. If an AutoPlay window opens, close it.
* Click on Tools and select Burn CD/DVD with ISO.... A window will appear.
* Click on the little folder to the right of CD/DVD Image File then navigate to the newly created RCplus.iso Image file and click Open.
* In the CD/DVD Writing Speed drop-down menu choose the 8X setting.
* Under Format make sure that Mode 1 is selected.
* And finally, click on the Burn it! button to burn RCplus.iso to disk.


Once the disk is burned, put it in the machine you want to fix and restart it.
Boot to the CD just as you would with a Windows XP disk.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Choose the installation to be repaired by number (usually 1) and press Enter.
When you are asked for the Administrator password, enter the password or leave it blank (default) and press Enter.

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit


After putting in the third command, you should receive the message 1 file copied which will indicate that the operation succeeded.
Now take out the CD and reboot your computer to normal mode. Try to log in and it should let you back in.

Thanks to wannabe1

[rshaffer61]

Hello terica.... Welcome to GeeksToGo,

I'm sorry to hear about your issue. We will try to help you resolve this as soon as possible.
Please understand we are all volunteers and we are not here all the time. Sometimes it may be a extended amount of time to get back to you. If it has been more then 3 days please shoot me a PM and I will try to get back to you quickly then.



Give this a try. Without knowing a little more about what caused the problem, I can't guarantee it will work...and it requires the machine you make the disk on AND the machine you are fixing are both running XP.

Please download RC.ISO and save it somewhere you can find it.
Also download MagicISO.

Start MagicISO. You should see a window informing you about the full version of MagicISO.
In the bottom right select Try It! and the program will open.
Click on File and then on Open and navigate to the RC.ISO file you downloaded. Select it, and click Open.

First, we'll need to add a clean version of userinit.exe to the current RC.ISO

* In the upper right pane, double click on the i386 folder.
* Right click in the upper right pane and select Add Files...
* Navigate to C:\Windows\System32 and select userinit.exe
* Then click Open to add userinit.exe to the CD image.
* Click File and select Save As...
* Name the file RCplus and save it somewhere you can find it.


Next, we'll need to burn the newly created image to a disk that we can use to fix the problem.

* Put a blank CD-R disk in your CD burner and close the tray. If an AutoPlay window opens, close it.
* Click on Tools and select Burn CD/DVD with ISO.... A window will appear.
* Click on the little folder to the right of CD/DVD Image File then navigate to the newly created RCplus.iso Image file and click Open.
* In the CD/DVD Writing Speed drop-down menu choose the 8X setting.
* Under Format make sure that Mode 1 is selected.
* And finally, click on the Burn it! button to burn RCplus.iso to disk.


Once the disk is burned, put it in the machine you want to fix and restart it.
Boot to the CD just as you would with a Windows XP disk.
At the Welcome to Setup screen, press R to enter the Recovery Console.
Choose the installation to be repaired by number (usually 1) and press Enter.
When you are asked for the Administrator password, enter the password or leave it blank (default) and press Enter.

At the C:\Windows> prompt, type the following commands pressing Enter after each one. Note: Watch the spaces.

D:
cd i386
copy userinit.exe c:\windows\system32
exit


After putting in the third command, you should receive the message 1 file copied which will indicate that the operation succeeded.
Now take out the CD and reboot your computer to normal mode. Try to log in and it should let you back in.

Thanks to wannabe1

[mikeloeven]

first of all i dont trust any software with super antivirus in it's name i would recomend avira, avg, or avast all are reletivly well known and have free versions. but thats just me. one possibility which i suspect is the road the previous tech is working along is that an infected system file which was either quarenteened or deleted by the antivirus program is missing (yes windows files can be deleted by acident though it is rather rare). if your really lucky the file transplant rshaffer61 suggested should work. but if it doesent work and your still relitivly lucky you may be able to boot into safe mode by rapidly pressing f8 right after the bios screen and selecting safemode with command prompt when the boot menu appears. after that comes up, you can try running the system file checker. enter sfc /SCANNOW into the prompt. this will scan all critical windows files and if a protected file is indeed missing the program will ask you to insert the windows disk and will put the file back where it belongs. if this doesent work you can try some of the more advanced measures that one of the trusted techs posts after this. but in the end it all comes down to how much time you have on hand. personally in a situation like this it is often faster to simply move the harddrive to another computer and copy the important data to a back up drive then reformat and reinstall the operating system. but if you want to persue a actial fix dont try reinstalling untill you exhaust every possibility.

Edited by mikeloeven, 26 October 2009 - 05:52 PM.

[rshaffer61]

A format is always the last step we here at GTG will do.
The first action is to always try to save the existing file system and data.
As far as anything with Super in it's name we do suggest a program called SuperAntiSpyware which has proven to be very reliable at spyware detection and protection.
AV program I always suggest
Avast
Avira
Malware Protection is always Malwarebytes

[Deon]

Happy 7,000th post, rshaffer61

[rshaffer61]

Thanks Deon.