[polscitek]

Hi All,

I know this topic has been posted before, but it might be a different issue from the others.
I work as the IT person at a University and one of my professors got a virus on his computer. I was able to back up most of his documents, however, I did not back up his e-mail (he uses a pop account) since the screen kept sticking and would not let me do anything. I decided to do a repair from the XP CD, however, now whenever I start the computer I get a blinking cursor in a black screen after the BIOS menu.
I have tried to get the boot menu but I am not able to get to it unless the HD is unplugged.
I set the boot menu to start with a CD first, but it does not follow that order.
I inserted another drive and made that drive the master and the other drive the slave, but that did not work either.

Does anyone have any ideas about what I can try to get the e-mail off the HD?

Thanks PolSciTek

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yep...slave the drive to working computer and get the data off the drive

[happyrock]

yep...slave the drive to working computer and get the data off the drive

[jpcarlos]

Hey!

Okay, so i had a mean virus on my computer. I finally got a hold of it and i believe i was able to kill it with panda cloud antivirus. However, when panda cloud cleaned it and it said to reboot, which i did, when my computer restarted i got the usual dell logo and the f2 and f12 options but after that it goes to a black screen with the blinking underscore (_) in the upper left hand corner. i have tried to use the, reinstalltion cd microsoft windows xp home edition including service pack 1 and 1a, but when i get to the point where it says press enter to start installation, r for repair, and f3 to exit, whenever i press r or any other button nothing happens. Originally, when i had the virus my computer was running on service pack 3 but i uninstalled it to reinstall internet explorer 7 and had service pack 2. when i rebooted after cleaning the virus i had service pack 2. could that be the reason why the installation cd isnt working. i need help!!!!!! I also want to be able to keep all my files from before. like my music, pictures, documents, so on and so forth.

Thanks!

[happyrock]

jpcarlos you need to start your own topic here...Forums > Security > Computer Won't Boot - Malware Related

[polscitek]

happyrock: I tried to slave the drive, and in the BIOS it showed as the slave, however, whenever I plug in the slave drive (the corrupted drive) it runs the BIOS screen for a while and then shuts the computer down.

Any ideas?

PolSciTek

[happyrock]

just so were on the same page...
you connect the drive to a working computer...leaving the original drive in along with the other drive both the drives shows up in the bios but when you try booting into windows it just goes dead...
is that correct

[polscitek]

That's correct.

[happyrock]

then I'm afraid the drive is dead...
one last thing to try before tossing it...
put the drive back into the original computer

get puppy linux 2.16.1-seamonkey-fulldrivers.iso here...
if you don't have a burning program that will burn .ISO files go here and get burncdcc ..a small FAST no frills iso burning program...

NOTE...do not put a blank cd in until burncdcc opens the tray for you
1. click on BurnCDCC.exe
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...
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 usb flash drives or a external usb hard drive..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..

this guide is for using usb flash drives but if you have a external hard drive just substitute your external drive where it says flash drive

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 ...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 tabout 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 contains 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 16GB 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..