[smashguy37]

I've been sent here from Rorschach112 --

I've been battling a trojan problem and I had just run a tool to remove all the other apps I installed to do scans for trojans/malware and when I rebooted my computer would hang at the welcome/user screen. I could click on my user but it would do nothing. I tried running recovery console and doing fixboot and I tried this bootcfg / command with no luck. I tried using RC to do a repair install and everytime it hangs at 34mins while initializing devices, even overnight.

When I rebooted, Windows kept wanting to resume the setup, but it always froze. I tried something that worked for me in the past where you go into RC and type commands like "Copy c:\windows\system32\config\security.bak" and so on, but since doing that when I boot up it gets to the blue screen (setup?) and says something about a lsass.exe error and hardware being connected that wasn't working right or something. I disconnected all firewire/USB devices, but same thing. I haven't removed component by component yet (i.e. graphic card, soundcard) because I had to go to work, but I'm not sure if this is even fixable.

I ran a chkdsk /p scan that said my OS hard drive was okay. I'm fairly confident my hard drive is okay, but if it helps I can slave it to another computer to check it out some more.

I don't know if this has anything to do with it, but when I last reinstalled in September, almost immediately after, there appeared three blank spaces on top of my control panel list with blank icons, add/remove hardware stopped working and msconfig said I had no permission to change the startup list, but it would still change whatever I told it to anyway.

Any help is appreciated, thank you.

[Advertisements]

smashguy37



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.

[rshaffer61]

smashguy37



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.

[smashguy37]

I have already tried this route. I tried it again, just now, and it didn't do anything just rebooted, and I tried a second time and it still hangs at installing devices, except this time it's stuck at 35 mins instead of 34 mins. My computer isn't frozen, but the progress bar and time goes nowhere.

My DVD burner is on the fritz (skips when I play stuff in it), so could that be a contributing factor to this hanging? I don't have a second one handy. Anything else?

[rshaffer61]

My DVD burner is on the fritz (skips when I play stuff in it), so could that be a contributing factor to this hanging? I don't have a second one handy. Anything else?

This could be the reason it is not completing.
Can you borrow one so you can complete the steps?
All instructions I can give you would really depend on having a correctly working optical drive.

[smashguy37]

Ok, I'll try to get one today. I don't know if it matters, but my PSU blew up on New Years Day so I've been using an old 400w PSU until Seasonic ships me a new one, however I've only been running my OS and one other drive, not all 4 drives, I'm not powering my video card (9600GT), etc, mainly because the PSU is lacking some connectors and the cords are too short.

Also, can I do this repair install via an external optical drive, or no?

[rshaffer61]

I don't know if it matters, but my PSU blew up on New Years Day so I've been using an old 400w PSU

This may answer for a lot right now also. This happened on New Years day so when did this booting issue start happening originally?
i see the 9600GT also has a power connection so that could be part of the issue also. I'm surprised it even gets any picture with no power.

Also, can I do this repair install via an external optical drive, or no?

Only if your bios has the capability to boot to a external drive.

[smashguy37]

OK, I borrowed one, I'm going to try it now. Besides my PSU blowing up, I got a trojan on January 15 and then it stopped booting up January 18. I'm surprised my video card got a picture too...there wasn't much difference besides sometimes dragging around windows were sluggish, but that was it.

I could see it causing a problem, but it shouldn't have caused the initial boot failure? I've been running without video card power for like 18 days.

[smashguy37]

Nope, same problem - still hangs at 35 minutes. Do I have any other options left?

[rshaffer61]

OK this bothers me about PSU blowing up. I think we need to do some serious hardware checking right now.

Run hard drive diagnostics: http://www.tacktech....ay.cfm?ttid=287
Make sure, you select tool, which is appropriate for the brand of your hard drive.
Depending on the program, it'll create bootable floppy, or bootable CD.
If downloaded file is of .iso type, use ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ to burn .iso file to a CD (select "Write image file to disc" option), and make the CD bootable.

NOTE. If your hard drive is made by Toshiba, unfortunately, you're out of luck, because Toshiba doesn't provide any diagnostic tool.

Thanks to Broni for the instructions

[smashguy37]

I'm running LifeGuard right now -- is that what I'm supposed to run (it's Western Digital like my drives). What is the point of making a bootable CD? I'll do it anyway, but just wondering.

I'm running my OS drive in an external SATA dock into my wife's laptop.

[rshaffer61]

Lifeguard works just fine.
When that is done then we can test the memory.

[smashguy37]

I did a quick scan and it came out okay. I tried the bootable CD thing, but I couldn't make it work when it booted up, it just said it couldn't find the drive. Now when I boot up I get the infamous "Cannot find windows/system32/config/system" error. I got this error for no reason back in Spetember too.

I assume you want me to run memtest with my memory? I think I have memtest CDs somewhere. I think I need to reinstall Windows regardless, but I want to make sure my hardware is okay. I'm hoping my new PSU gets here soon, it's driving me nuts.

[smashguy37]

Since I had this same error message back in September, I ran these lines of code again today:

http://everything2.c...- how to fix it

I got back into Windows now. It wants me to re-activate Windows. I'm on my old video card, so I don't what the full state of my OS is right now. I'm afraid to use it. I'll try to run memtest though...

[rshaffer61]

OK let me know what memtest shows if anything.
If it stays in windows that is good as we can run some test on it then.

[smashguy37]

One pass showed no errors, but I left it running for a second pass and TEST 4 is getting all kinds of stuff.

I'm always uncertain because this same RAM with my old mobo did the same thing, but 2 years ago I took it in and the store ran memtest for days with no issues. They figured it might be a board issue (was using a crappy crossover Ausrock board DDR1 & DD2).

I still have to run my other stick, but this memtest says PENTIUM III 2833MHZ, is that right? I'm running a Q9550 quad...

It says I have 6 errors, and the number in the list keeps cycling but constantly going to 32766

Lowest Error Address: 00000008004 - .5mb
Highest: 000fffffffb - 4095.9mb
Bits in error mask - ffffffff
Total - 32, min - 1, avg: 17
Max contiguous Errors: 1
Errors per slot: 0: 3

The pattern is "a7d02ae8"

The memory I think is Crucial Rendition 2x1gb sticks.