[rootkits-r-evil]

I'd repair both C and E

It only saw "C". I'm running a repair on it now.

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Didn't work. :-(

Got all the way to the end, went to the next screen, kept going, and suddenly a box popped up...

"The file asms on windows home edition service pack 2 is needed.

type the path where the file is located and then click ok"



in the box was "global root\device\cdrom0\1386" already.

------------------------------------------------------------
Click OK, nothing. The other choice was "C", I didn't press that, I pressed "Cancel", and that was it. It stopped.

[rootkits-r-evil]

Didn't work. :-(

Got all the way to the end, went to the next screen, kept going, and suddenly a box popped up...

"The file asms on windows home edition service pack 2 is needed.

type the path where the file is located and then click ok"



in the box was "global root\device\cdrom0\1386" already.

------------------------------------------------------------
Click OK, nothing. The other choice was "C", I didn't press that, I pressed "Cancel", and that was it. It stopped.

[rootkits-r-evil]

Oh wait- I had taken out the CD. Duh. Start over....

[rootkits-r-evil]

That was dumb but it's 2:43 on the East Coast...

so I am forgiven.

[rootkits-r-evil]

Wow!

Let me say it again- Wow!

Where did I go? You ask. All of a sudden I disappeared on you.

Go ahead and guess what happened. Go ahead.


Nope. Wrong.

I was working on that problem....

and all of a sudden on the "good" machine I started getting fake avs popups. Oh, yeah. THIS machine got some malware.

I saw task manager was greyed out. So I did the smart thing- I shut off my modem. that way it couldn't download more crap.

It did some nasty stuff- hid all my files, shut off task manager. All kinds of stuff. My big fear was that it was the same nasty virus. but it wasn't it was a run of the mill malware.

when I got back and running,I deleted malwarebytes, and re-installed it then I ran it. All kinds of nasty stuff.

Here,,,,,

take a look.




Can you believe it? Wow. I hit the jackpot this week.

I got rid of all of it. I'm clean. On this machine.

[rootkits-r-evil]

But the one we have been trying to fix? It's TOAST. That was a bad idea to run that disk. Now it is stuck in a loop. Keeps giving me the error code that it needs a file to reinstall XP. Can't boot. Not in safe mode- nothing. TOAST.

Any ideas?

I need to get some sleep.

[RKinner]

Delete the hidden partition, repair windows again.

[rootkits-r-evil]

I knew you would come up with a good answer. :-)


What do I do next?

[RKinner]

Go into Recovery Console. Select C:\

Then type (with an Enter at the end):

diskpart

select partition 3

(Make sure you are at partition 3 before going on. It should say: Partition 3 is now the selected partition.)

delete partition

(If this is nothing more than a DELL hidden recovery partition then it may balk and refuse to remove it. There should be an error in this case. )

Boot into the XP disk and run a repair install again. This time leave the CD in until it tells you to remove it.

I have decided that the change we made to boot.ini was a mistake. It appears that they are no longer numbering the partitions starting with 0 like they used to. So go ahead and boot into the one that doesn't say Good if you get the chance.

Ron

[rootkits-r-evil]

"Go into Recovery Console. Select C:\"

It won't let me. It gave me an error code when I tried. Same with "E". But I'll try again right now, that was last night and I was very tired as you can imagine. :-)

[RKinner]

Actually I think you had to type a 1 didn't you?

[rootkits-r-evil]

No matter what, it boots into a bluescreen that says, "Setup is being restarted..."

Then it tries to setup with what was loaded from the Windows disk. Then it comes to the place where a box pops up saying it needs a file to continue, that it can't find the file, and to tell it where to look. A location on the disk is in the window already, or there is a menu that lets you choose "C". If I hit "continue" with either choice seleted it says, sorry, can't continue, shuts down, then starts over again in an endless loop.

I am going to try real hard to stop it from going into the bluescreen on boot, because when the black boot menue screen comes up, you get like half a second. (I loved you trick of changing that to ten seconds, but of course that's gone now.)
I think I managed to do that last night, but it won't let me go into recovery console. I know it wouldn't let me roll it back to an earlier time, but let me try again,..

[rootkits-r-evil]

Here is what it looks like when it wants the file it can't get and starts the loop again.



In any event...

"Actually I think you had to type a 1 didn't you?"

Right. 1 for "C", 2 for "E".

Turns out last night what I was trying was to get into a restore console.

I got mixed up. When I hit 1 for C, it brings me to a C prompt like you said. So I am going to try to get rid of the partition per your instructions.

[RKinner]

I can't read the file name it is looking for even if I blow up the picture.

Ron

[rootkits-r-evil]

Go into Recovery Console. Select C:\

Then type (with an Enter at the end):

diskpart

select partition 3

(Make sure you are at partition 3 before going on. It should say: Partition 3 is now the selected partition.)

delete partition

(If this is nothing more than a DELL hidden recovery partition then it may balk and refuse to remove it. There should be an error in this case. )


Done! It worked. Looks like the Evil Partition is no more. Hooray!

Boot into the XP disk and run a repair install again. This time leave the CD in until it tells you to remove it.

Will do.

It's humming away over there....

I have decided that the change we made to boot.ini was a mistake. It appears that they are no longer numbering the partitions starting with 0 like they used to.

You are still my idol.


So go ahead and boot into the one that doesn't say Good if you get the chance.

If I get the chance- I'm taking it.