[Musickid]

Hey and thanks for stopping by!

You guys are great. On a past computer I found you guys extremely helpful in getting rid of unwanted viruses...

Honestly... I have NO idea what is going on with one of my computers. Recently I took it to a CO Springs store called Tech for Less and they installed 1 gig of RAM on this machine, and I personally installed a new graphics card and its drivers. I took it home, booted it up. Everything was working fine. I decided to try to end some processes, because they suggested that I was running way too many (49??). Anyway, later that day my friend came over and we decided to LAN on BattleField Vietnam. (On my two computers btw). The game was not cooperating on either computer, although it had been just the day before. We uninstalled the game on the computer I recently upgraded. We then reinstalled it... still didn't work. So I restored the computer to a day when I KNEW it was working. However... during restore a message popped up that said something like this "A file in your registery was corrupted and was successfully replaced by a copy." I didn't like the sound of that so much. When I reinstalled BF Viet it still didn't work. And now error messages were popping up, for random things that I've never heard of before. We then tried BattleField 1942 which we never had any problems with before in the past. That also was no longer working. It booted up and crashed. We tried restoring it a couple times (we had no idea what to do =-\), and that got us no where. Then AVG kindly informed us of some Trojan Backdoor agent which my friend, unfortunately, closed without letting me write down which specific one it was. We turned the computer off... and we were no longer able to turn it on. It would just constantly boot and restart. I decided to press F10 and selected system recovery. I did the simple option... but it never got past one percent. I then decided to try the advanced, it got all the way through it... but not after it notified my a billion times that the files it was looking for were no longer there!!!! So, it got all the way through... I then turn it on, it looks like its loading windows and then restarts.

Thats exactly where I am now. I DO have a set of recovery disks, but I do not know how to use them. I did not create them, and my mom said the recovery was supposed to prompt for them? Normally I don't find myself so ignorant as to the next step in a computer issue... I would appreciate ANY help that can be offered.

You guys are great. No big rush to answer this of course. Just for the record... everything on that computer is legal. Including the opporating system, so the problem would have nothing to do with faulty pirated software.

Thanks!!!

RJ Maunton

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Hello,

Apparantly your computer is Malware infected... as you probably know. But since your computer will probably only run in Safe Mode and it makes no sense to try to troubleshoot any kind of software/hardware problem (if present) until your machine is Malware free, can you please go to the MALWARE FORUM and create a topic with the same text... you can copy and paste what you wrote here. They will help you there with this problem.

Please advise the Malware folks that you created a topic in this forum (Hardware/Comp/Periph) and that I sent you there due to possible infection.

Thanks!

[makai]

Hello,

Apparantly your computer is Malware infected... as you probably know. But since your computer will probably only run in Safe Mode and it makes no sense to try to troubleshoot any kind of software/hardware problem (if present) until your machine is Malware free, can you please go to the MALWARE FORUM and create a topic with the same text... you can copy and paste what you wrote here. They will help you there with this problem.

Please advise the Malware folks that you created a topic in this forum (Hardware/Comp/Periph) and that I sent you there due to possible infection.

Thanks!

[Musickid]

Thanks man! It's done. I appreciate it. I wasn't sure which category it should go!

[makai]

No problem! By the way, the malware folks are quite busy, as you can imagine. Please be patient if they don't get to you right away.

Thanks!
makai

Edited by makai, 16 March 2006 - 05:26 PM.

[Musickid]

Yah dude, no problem. btw, Safe Mode doesn't even work... haha, just incase that changes anything. Thanks once again!

~RJ

[makai]

You can't start in Safe mode??? Uhhh, did I miss that in your post somewhere?

Yes, that changes some things quite a bit. The malware people won't be able to help you unless you can boot your machine. They will likely send you back here.

Since the malware people have not posted to your topic, I have left them a note not to take action in light of you not being able to even boot to Safe mode.

Please go HERE and follow the instructions for doing a Repair on your Windows Installation. It's not difficult as long as you follow along. Take your time, and you should be fine.

[Musickid]

Thanks! I will do that in asap and will post back in a couple hours.

[Musickid]

Well... I found the set of 8 recovery disks that the user is advised to make in case something like this happens... UNFORTUNATELY all the same extraction errors are present. It is my belief that this computer came with a faulty recovery program? Here are some of the files it could not extract:

A couple HP Tour things, and Windows Faunt

WINDOWS\system32\nvinstnt.dll
WINDOWS\system32\dllcache\dbgeng.dll
WINDOWS\I386\AUTOFMT.EXE
WINDOWS\I386\BRMSI03.IC
WINDOWS\I386\BROWAUI.TT_
WINDOWS\I386\CAPESNPN.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\CERTMGR.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\CMD.EX_
WINDOWS\I386\COMANDMIN.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\COURBI.TT_
WINDOWS\I386\COURTFT.FO_
WINDOWS\I386\CSCDLL.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\DEVMGR.CH_
WINDOWS\I386\DNSAPI.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\DRMCLIEN.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\DX3J.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\DXTMSFT.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\ES.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\EXTS.DLL
WINDOWS\I386\FXSWZRD.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\GLMDIGGP.PN_
WINDOWS\I386\OEMBIOS.BI_
WINDOWS\I386\PALABI.TT_
WINDOWS\I386\PER_SEG1.SW_
WINDOWS\I386\PER_SEG2.SW_
WINDOWS\I386\PER_SEG5.SW_
WINDOWS\I386\SHELL32.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\SNMPSMIR.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\SNMPSNAP.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\SOFTKBD.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\SP1.CAB
WINDOWS\I386\SV-262E1.PN_
WINDOWS\I386\SV-262E3.PN_
WINDOWS\I386\SXS.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\SYSDM.CP_
WINDOWS\I386\TASKMGRP.CH_
WINDOWS\I386\TITLE.WM_
WINDOWS\I386\TOURP.EX_
WINDOWS\I386\TREBUCIT.TT_
WINDOWS\I386\UPCII.TT_
WINDOWS\I386\UTOPIARE.WA_
WINDOWS\I386\WBDBASE.ES_
WINDOWS\I386\WIASERVC.DL_
WINDOWS\I386\WIN32K.SY_
WINDOWS\I386\LANG\IMJPST.DI_
WINDOWS\Installer\33556f.msi
WINDOWS\Installer\56658.msi
WINDOWS\assembly\GAC\Microsoft.VisualBasic\7.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
WINDOWS\assembly\GAC\System.Data\1.0.3300.0__b77a5c561934e089\System.Data.dll
WINDOWS\assembly\GAC\System.Configuration.Install\1.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a\System.Configuration.Install.dll
WINDOWS\assembly\GAC\System.Xml\1.03300.0__b77a5c561934e089\System.Xml.dll
WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages1_v1.03705\System.Design\1.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a_db7e95dd\System.Design.dll
(Many other similiar extraction errors)

Program Files\ArcSoft\Software Suite\Funhouse\Contents\roleplay\camel.jpg
Program Files\ArcSoft\Software Suite\Funhouse\Contents\roleplay\clinton.jpg
Program Files\ArcSoft\Software Suite\Funhouse\Contents\sports\rugby.jpg
(Many other similar extraction errors)

After I completed all the extraction (what did extract) I set all the BIOS settings to normal and booted it up. It goes to the Loading windows thing. Then it shows the XP Sign with black background and copyright info, etc. with it saying please wait in the middle of it. After it waits for 3-5 minutes a file download wants to be opened or saved. the file name is msobshel.html it is an html document from C:\Windows\system32\oobe I selected open cause I didn't want to save anything... It then goes back to the Windows XP Home Edition Screen saying please wait, but I have an hourglass just sitting there.... It's taking its sweet time... So far its been at this same screen for... 5 or 7 minutes. 15 minutes now... It doesn't look like anything else is gonna hapeen. I'll let it sit, but it shouldn't be taking this longer

ANYWAY,

There are many more it couldn't extract... I have no clue why?! It is a valid version of XP that came with the machine when we bought it back around.... 2002 I believe. It is an HP Pavilion 524w. Didn't come with an official XP installation disk. I believe I DO have an official XP disk that came with my Gateway computer... and I'm not entirely sure whether I have an XP disk that came with the HP that I am on currently.

I find myself fairly frustrated that I received a flawed XP installation with my Pavilion. I have no clue why the files are not extracting. The disks are in excellent condition. Is there any possible way that I can use my other XP disk without doing something illegal?

I am at a loss of what to do... Gah. I don't really feel like paying a hundred or 2 hundred bucks for another version of XP. So is there anything I can do? Its warranty expired a long time ago I'm guessing....

Thanks for any and all help!

~RJ

[makai]

Bummers!

I can actually think of four things you can do at this point...

This is the BEST OPTION...
The first thing is call HP and explain that your recovery disks are corrupted and you need replacements. Offer to send the old discs back so they know you are legit. If the HP tech says this is not possibe (if your computer is out of warranty), ask to speak to the supervisor and explain that having corrupted disks is not your fault. Go as high as required... even to Corporate if needed. I'm serious! Hp should support their products... especially if it's not the users fault. Who would have guessed that several years down the road you would need to recover only to find out the discs were bad!!

The second thing...
Borrow a set of HP discs from someone that has the same machine and use those discs to recover your machine. The recovery discs are the same as long as the machine is the same. Your computer should have a Windows COA sticker attached to it that has a valid serial number. While this number is not used during recovery install, it is what identifies your machine as legal. If the install goes fine, you're legal.

Thirdly...

Is there any possible way that I can use my other XP disk without doing something illegal?

First off, I'm going to guess that the Gateway disc is actually a branded XP disc. The way things work, is that OEM manufactures will take a real XP OS, and integrate it with drivers specifically targeting their machines. If you take a disc from one manufacture and attempt to install the OS onto another manufacture's computer, more than likely the install will fail.

And finally...
When you purchased your HP, you also purchased that Windows COA license. It is possible that you could borrow a real XP disc and install it using the serial number on your COA sticker. The disc you borrow needs to be an OEM disc and not a RETAIL version. There may be no indication of OEM vs RETAIL on the disc itself, but once you try to apply the serial number, you'll know, as your serial number is surely OEM, and will not work on a RETAIL disc. If you do borrow a disc, and you're successful at installing the OS, then you will need to register/activate with Microsoft. If registration and activation goes through, then your machine is considered legal.


Call HP first though, and see what can be done about the recovery discs. Let me know what happens.

[Musickid]

Hey man,
I'll do all this in a couple days! I can't until Monday afternoon or tuesday! So, I will reply when I can. Thanks for all the options!

[Musickid]

Hey,
I did something REALLY interesting. I havn't called yet. I wanna let you know what I did first... hehe. OK, so I put in that OS disk I got from my gateway and had it repair windows... Now I CAN get into regular windows and everything is working smoothly. I have all the drivers (I believe, I havn't fully tested it yet) that I know of so far. But, I have to load it off the disk still, but I can then take the disk out and continue using windows, after being prompted each time that I have to activate it... and then it tells me its already activated! arg. I CAN boot into safe mode without using the disk. I do plan to call HP and ask for new recovery disks, but I hope to keep using this in the meantime. Was i right in doing this? It seems to be working just fine. If there is something else I should do let me know! I'm glad I can get into safe mode now though (without having to use the OS disk)... thats a good sign =-D

If you need any more details let me know!

Thanks,
RJ

[Musickid]

Oh, and it won't let me install Jedi Academy... and I havn't tested out any other games. I don't think I will. So, lol. It's definately not perfect. Grrr *sigh* I'll call up HP tomorrow.

[Musickid]

Hey,

We've pretty much decided that we'll send the harddrive in or something similar, and have them reinstall the operating system and all the necessary drivers! I appreciate your help. If I have any more issues I'll be sure and create a new post. As for now time to let HP take care of my troubles. Thanks for the advice!!! :-D

Peace
RJ