[evano711]

Last night around 10 pm I contracted a virus onto my computer. A little red x popped up in the bottom right saying that I needed to scan with a special antispam software in order to avoid infection. I immediatly opened Spybot Search and Destroy and scanned which found I believe 7 items. I corrected all of these problems and then shut my computer down for the night resolving to finish cleaning it in the morning. I attempted to start up my computer today but when logging in was immediatly logged off. I cannot get into the computer through any modes such as safe mode. How can i fix my problem? Thank you for your help.

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Ditto here last night too

[cdc53]

Ditto here last night too

[rshaffer61]

Hello evano711.... 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

[evano711]

I did as u suggested and had no luck. I copyed the file from the disk i created and it asked if i wished to overwrite the userinit.exe file and i said yes. It still kicked me back out once i logged in.

[rshaffer61]

Laptop or desktop?
Name brand or custom built?
Do you have a Genuine Microsoft XP installation disk or a Recovery Disk
If neither then can you borrow a XP from a friend but it would need to be the same kind as you ahve on your system. Home, Media Center or Pro
Then we can attempt a Repair Installation or a Parallel Installation
Is there data on the system that needs to be saved just in case?

[evano711]

It is a Dell Inspiron 1505 Laptop. The specs should be in my profile. It has Windows XP MEdia Center Edition and I do have my instillation disk. I would love to save the data off the hard drive if at all possible. Nothing that is life threatening important but have a lot of music and other files i would need for school.

[rshaffer61]

Then lets save the data first of all so that we know it is safe and sound.

Get Puppy Linux from my signature below...Get puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso download it and burn it to cd
..
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files get Burncdcc from my signature...it is a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. Start BurnCDCC
2. Browse to the ISO file you want to burn on cd/dvd ....in this case its puppy-2.16-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso
3. Select the ISO file
4. click on Start

make sure in the bios the cd drive is the first boot device....

put the cd in the cd drive..boot your computer....puppy will boot and run totally in ram...if your hardware is is good working order you will know...
after you get it running and your at the desktop...you take the puppy linux cd out and then you can use the burner to copy all your data to cd/dvds
you can also use it to backup your data to a external usb harddrive..just have it hooked to the computer when you boot up with puppy...

==========================
quick guide for saving data...music..files on a system that will not boot using puppy Linux..


after you get to puppy desktop..
click on the drives icon...looks like a flash drive...top row..it will list all the drives connected to

your computer...

click on the red icon for the drive you want to mount...in this case its a flash drive ...puppy will

mount the drive..the drive icon turns green when its mounted...
minimize the drives mounter window..you will need it again in a few minutes..
drag the right edge of it sideways to shrink it to its narrowest size...about half the width of the screen...then drag the window to the right edge of the screen...

now click on the icon that looks like a filing cabinet (kind of yellow) on the main drive...it should
already be green..
you will see a list of all the folders on the main drive Usually your C: drive..shrink that window to
the narrowest you can..about half the width of the screen...drag that window to the left side of the screen...
at this point you should have 2 windows open on your desktop..the flash drive on the right side..
go back to the folders on the C: drive...click on the documents and settings folder...then your user
name or all users..find the folders that has your data..
drag and drop the folder with the data you want to make copies of to the flash drive window...

your options are to move ..copy ect...JUST COPY..if its to big you will have to open the folder and
drag and drop individual files until the flash drive is full...(I have a 120 GB external USB drive for
big data recovery jobs and a 4 GB flash drive for the smaller jobs)..after you get the files copied to
the flash drive...
Click on the drives mounter you minimized earlier
UNMOUNT THE FLASH DRIVE by clicking on the green icon..you will once in awhile get error messages when
unmouting the drive..ignore them..when the flash drive icon turns red again its safe to remove the
flash drive..trot on over (stroll if you want to look cool) to another computer and plug in the flash

drive and copy all the data files ( I drag and drop) to the other computer..
make sure the other computer can read them...

now delete the data on the flash drive...take it back to the misbehaving computer and plug it in

again..click on the drives icon again and repeat until you have all your data transferred to the working
system..

Thanks to happyrock

[evano711]

I am now currently transfering files. Thank you for all that you have givin me so far. What will be our next step? i wanted to post before i was done so that you had time to post without me sitting here waiting ha. Is there any way we can salvage my computer without reformating? Since I will have my files backed up it wont be a huge deal but it is always better if it can be avoided.

[rshaffer61]

The next step is to try a Repair Installation using your XP disk.
You are sure it is a Installation disk for XP and not a Recovery Disk?

[evano711]

Yes it is a red cd. with Operating System at the top and says Reinstallation DVD Microsoft Windows XP MEdia Center VErsion 2005 with Update Rollup 2

[rshaffer61]

OK then when you are done with backing up do the following exactly as it says. If everything goes right your data will still be on the system and everything will bootup correctly.

Repair Installation Instructions

· Insert your Windows XP CD in your CD-ROM and then Restart your computer.
· At the first post screen start tapping the Del key to enter System Bios
· Find the Advance Options or Boot Sequence screen.
· You will need to change the boot sequence so that the CDrom is first and the HD is second.
· Press F10 to Save and Exit and then press Enter to accept.
· The system will now reboot
· When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD.
· When you see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press ENTER
· To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
· At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is displayed. DO NOT SELECT THIS OPTION.

· On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement.
· Make sure that your current installation of Windows XP is selected and highlighted in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows XP.
· Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

You can also go HERE
to read a step by step tutorial with screenshots.

[evano711]

Thank you so very much! It let me login and I am now currently running MAlwarebytes and Avira scans. Will follow with spybot search and destroy and hopefully it will be clean. Just to let you know I cam eacross these errors while installing.

"The procedure entry point GetRequestedRuntimeVersion could not be located in the dynamic link library mscorce.dll"
"C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727\ mscorwks.dll could not be loaded"

not sure what they mean but I am in so I am very happy. Been working on this for 7 straight hours thank you very much. Please if u have any thing else to recommend me doing to prevent this from happpengin again or cleaning my computer even more feel free to say.

[rshaffer61]

Since this all started with a virus I suggest you go to the Malware Removal and Spyware Removal Forum and run all the steps located in the
START HERE. These self-help tools will help you clean up 70% of problems on your own.
If you are still having problems after doing the steps, then please post the reguested logs in THAT forum.
If you are unable to run any of the tools then start a new topic in the malware forum and put this in the subject line...I am unable to run any malware tools

If you are still having problems after being given a clean bill of health from the malware expert, then please return to THIS thread and we will pursue other options to help you solve your current problem(s).

Add a link to this topic so that malware tech can see what steps have been taken here

Edited by rshaffer61, 17 January 2010 - 04:42 PM.