Trying to get back to Windows

Long story- I'll try to make it short. I got a virus, many scans didn't get rid of it. Couldn't load Safe Mode, was told to go into msconfig and tell it to load into Safe Mode under the Boot.ini section... at which point my computer ceased to load Windows. Period. It can't seem to load Safe mode at all. Every time it's told to load Windows in the last working manner, as far as I can tell, it tries to follow the Boot.ini, hits Safe Mode and simply... restarts. Over and over. Each Safe Mode option.... restart. Load Windows with last working Config?... restart. AUGH.

Using a portable floppy drive (B:\) with a boot disk which I had to manually tell it to load. No questions/prompts appeared when I got it to load DOS using this. So now I am in DOS, at a C: prompt and completely lost a frustrated. Bootcfg doesn't work. dir shows only two things, SYSTEM~1 (a DIR) and WL_SET~2 which is an exe file.

This is an XP computer, without a boot CD - the install stuff for XP is actually on a partition on the hard drive. I have an extra external hard drive hooked up to the computer, which was labled J: in Windows, and does not have an installed OS. That Hard drive is merely my storage drive for files, and I believe it is coming up as D:\ in DOS.

All I want is to be able to get back into Windows so I can get what files I need/want off the system before reformatting.

There is one file in the Windows\Temp that may be the virus which I was going to attempt to delete. I know it isn't a vital file, but in Windows it says it's "in use" even when it shouldn't be.

Yes, I ran a half dozen virus and malware scans. Did no good. Most said my computer was clean as a whistle. Hijackthis wasn't even coming up with anything odd according to their analysis. I'm not a complete newbie to computers, but my DOS time & experience is pretty small- I started into computers limited before Win95, but didn't have much actual use till Win95 and later.

Not sure of the computer's stats other then it is dual core, 1 or 2 gig ram, XP and was fully updated (all service packs & "important" updates) as of the day before Thanksgiving when it went wiggy. One hard drive installed, the second external hard drive is USB-connected. I still have the USB floppy and Boot disk handy, I also have a borrowed XP install cd on hand.

Edited: No Recovery Console was installed, as I didn't expect Safe Mode to cause this bizzare loop. I should've listened to that little voice that questioned my husband's wisdom about the Boot.ini in the first place.

Is this a desktop PC? Do you have another computer you can use?

If you have another computer, you can simply hook up your hard drive you want to save files off of to your other computer and see how that goes. (But I don't know if  your virus would infect other computer so be careful)

Is this a desktop PC? Do you have another computer you can use?

If you have another computer, you can simply hook up your hard drive you want to save files off of to your other computer and see how that goes. (But I don't know if  your virus would infect other computer so be careful)

It is a desktop, and the external hard drive I have is actually an internal with a special case- it's easy to swap HD's with it. I've been using my husband's computer since mine went down.

That was the one reason I haven't tried that- I am afraid the virus might spread and then both computers would be SOL. It is a trojan, and while my computer had Windows on it was continually producing empty files into the Temp folder. AVG was the only virus/malware program that was picking it up, ad only on it's Alert- it did not pick it up on a computer full scan. Semantic, Trend Micro.... nothing. Frustrating!

attach you hard drive to your husbands computer and copy all your important files.

get around the files carefully so that you may not hit the virus 

I think you will only have document files to save from your hard drive

you can prevent all the executable files from clicking while you take files from you hard drive.

also install a reliable antivirus  like Rising Antivirus or something else on your husband computer before connecting the hard drive into it.

if you still afraid, then first take all the important data from your hard drive to a CD or something else from the C drive of your husbands drive


Between I never save data on C drive as windows may be damaged anytime so I advise other of the same too.