[snickers]

I posted in the Waiting Room on 12/22, 4 days ago and still haven't had a reply.

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My only guess would be - Christmas time. You need to wait a little bit longer.

[Broni]

My only guess would be - Christmas time. You need to wait a little bit longer.

[Dwight]

Hi, When you type sfc /scannow in the start search then right click on it and tell it to run as
run as administrator, see if that works.

Dwight

[snickers]

Hi, When you type sfc /scannow in the start search then right click on it and tell it to run as
run as administrator, see if that works.

Dwight

I just tried doing it but it didn't work. A black box flashes on screen for a second and then that's it.

[Dwight]

try rebooting.

Dwight

[snickers]

I rebooted, but it didn't help.

[snickers]

My only guess would be - Christmas time. You need to wait a little bit longer.

Someone finally did reply to me and is working with me on the spyware/malware forums:
http://www.geekstogo...re-t262236.html
They told me to do a couple of scans and I have posted the logs they requested and am waiting for their reply. I will post the final outcome after they finish analyzing my case.

Hi, When you type sfc /scannow in the start search then right click on it and tell it to run as
run as administrator, see if that works.

Dwight

I finally got the sfc /scannow to work by typing in command prompt and running it there as administrator. The results showed no errors.

[Broni]

We'll put this thread on hold, until you're done in malware forum.

[andrewuk]

i have completed looking and clearing snickers logs in the malware forum, and left some clean up instructions to remove the tools we used before coming back here.

to be honest, there was very little malware on the machine, if at all.

the main issue was that we could not get GMER to run which may be a sign of a hard disk issue.

andrewuk

[Broni]

Thank you
I'll wait for snickers to come back here.

[snickers]

I'm back. What should I do next?

[Broni]

At this point, I'm not sure.
We checked hard drive, seems to be fine.
Malware-wise, seems to be OK, as well.

I guess, the only option left is to back up your data and reinstall Windows, unless you can borrow real Vista DVD and we can try repair installation.

[snickers]

I really didn't want to reinstall Windows, unless I absolutely had to. How do I go about backing up data, if I found I did have to do a reinstall?

So, the reinstall Vista DVD won't work for repair?

I noticed that during startup after pressing F8 for safemode, there is an option to repair computer, and if I select that it says to access system recovery options to log on, but I don't know password. Would this work for repairing my computer, and if so how do I find out password?

[Broni]

So, the reinstall Vista DVD won't work for repair?

That's correct.

I noticed that during startup after pressing F8 for safemode, there is an option to repair computer

This will only repair startup issues, if you computer can't start. In your case, it looks like you have internal Windows issues.

As for backing your data...
- for now - Fab's AutoBackup: http://www.fpnet.fr/ should take care of most of your data; you should also go manually through your computer, in case there is something else, you want to backup
- for the future - always keep healthy backup of your entire computer, always:

Acronis True Image: http://www.acronis.com/ - not free, but the best

Free alternatives:
- Macrium Reflect: http://www.macrium.com/ReflectFree.asp (highly recommended)
- DriveImage XML: http://www.runtime.o...veimage-xml.htm
- SelfImage: http://www.excelcia....N...icle&sid=21
- Paragon Drive Backup: http://www.paragon-s...ome/db-express/

[snickers]

Is there anything else that can be done for fix the problem, other than reinstallation of Vista?

So would you say that the errors I get (can't do system restore and can't run check disk) indicate that there is enough of a Windows issue that I should reinstall Windows, or would I be able to wait until there is a serious problem with the computer to do a reinstall?

Also, you said I should always keep a data backup. I'm not sure how that works, because I have never done that before. For those programs that you suggested, do you have to copy to a CD or flash drive?
Thanks for all of the help.