[Jim Kiser]

A friend had a XP Pro machine that was overcome with Spyware and Adware. I cleaned most of it up but the last thing I did was boot into Safe Mode with Command Prompt to delete some files that couldn't be deleted in normal mode. I don't remember what these file were so I may have made a mistake. I shutdown getting ready to boot normally and while it was down I unplugged a thumb drive.

When I rebooted I got a blue screen saying some hardware was bad, I rebooted in safe mode and tried to figure out what broke but I couldn't find the problem. So I got a bright idea. I booted from an installation CD and got to the point where it asked if I wanted to install a new copy or repair an existing one so I chose repair. When setup tried to reboot it got the blue screen but it didn't halt it immediately rebooted in an infinite loop. I was able to press F8 to try and boot into safe mode but I get a message that Setup can't run in safe mode.

I rebooted from the CD and choose the repair console but I am not sure what to do to stop setup from trying to run or for diagnosing the blue screen.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Please explain them in detail since at this point I am feeling like I may have completely screwed my friend and if I can fix it I want to get right without making it worse.

Edited by Jim Kiser, 17 September 2005 - 07:01 PM.

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[Fenor]

Hey Jim Kiser,

Since you can't seem to get a REPAIR installation of XP to work because of the BSOD, I suggest you go back to the RECOVERY CONSOLE and type in the following items seperately.

• chkdsk /p /r <-- This will take awhile so be patient
• fixboot
• bootcfg /rebuild
• You can also do 'fixmbr' but don't do this until after you've done the last 3 and nothing has changed.

Good luck! Let us know in this thread how things are (or aren't) going.

Fenor

Edited by Fenor, 17 September 2005 - 07:10 PM.

[Fenor]

Also before typing EXIT to exit the recovery console and reboot your computer, take out the XP CD.

[Fenor]

Also, like you said, some of the hardware may be bad. I suggest you turn off your computer, take out all the PCI/AGP cards (only take out the AGP card if there is another spot for the monitor cable to connect to). Unplug all printers/cameras/etc.. in usb ports. If you are using USB mouse or keyboard, make sure USB legacy support is enabled in the BIOS for these or else Windows XP setup won't know how to use them and that could cause a BSOD. Best thing is to use a PS/2 mouse and keyboard when installing XP to minimize any problems. K.I.S.S. applies most definitely to windows installations, regardless of the OS version

Please try what I say in this post first before doing the other things I said to do in the recovery console.

Edited by Fenor, 17 September 2005 - 07:14 PM.

[Jim Kiser]

Also before typing EXIT to exit the recovery console and reboot your computer, take out the XP CD.

I found this out the hard way during my first series of attempts.

At this point I can't boot without the BSoD so I'll start removing cards tomorrow morning. I was hoping for a way to override setup running when I boot in safe mode.

Thanks for help so far. I'll keep you updated.