Well I used Windows Recovery consul and used fixmbr and that red and yellow screen disappeared. XP seems to boot just fine now. I also thought something could have corrupted the Bios and was going to flash/ upgrade it. However I don't see any system performance problems so I will just leave it alone.
I did finally managed to figure out why the hard drive was not allowing any changes. A while back I installed Microsoft Steady State on the machine because they seem to be catching so much viruses, and they use the computer for typing documents, checking email and sometimes shopping. I installed that software so that when the computer restarts any viruses or nasty stuff would be deleted. Apparently sometime when I installed it to the time I got the computer. Someone improperly deleted the steady state. The registry was still there and they did not turn off the hard drive protect and restrictions. ( long story short) I managed to get the program reinstalled and turned off the Hard drive protection as well as restore all settings. Took me a while to figure out, but now the drive is editable and I am now just clearing up the infections and installing the windows update. (I still have a copy of windows steady state 2.5 even though they discontinue and its not available for download anymore) It was a great software to bad they discontinue it. It was a deepfreeze alternative and it was free
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I have no idea how they keep catching these nasty infections, at least this time I managed to convince them to put a password on there wireless network, so hopefully that will solve some problems. Also going to recommend that they put passwords on the administrator accounts. I might create a power user and tell them to use that instead of just always logging on as an admin. They should log in as an admin only if necessary.
They just recently brought a mac as a backup because they are so tired of catching viruses and having there computer getting serviced because of some virus. I am going to clean up this machine install any windows update that is needed. Also going to install and dual boot Ubuntu as a second operating system if they catch a virus in Windows again.
They brought McAfee Total Protection and they called support and they did a remote scan and said the computer was "clean" unrealized when the computer restarts it all came back, so they were somewhat pissed because they paid for the all in one security suite and it did not do the job as it was suppose to, plus the tech said they could find nothing wrong with the computer and the computer should be fixed after whatever scan and whatever they did when it was remote accessed.
Just curious is there any software I can install to supplement there current protection. We know that even with paid software they don't exactly do as good of a job as people expect it should. I was hoping for some freeware I can install with their "total" protection. I have firefox withe no script and adblock but everyone in the house seems to use IE because it is just so use to it. I don't know any adblock software that is free for IE and maybe that would help?
They caught this virus apparently with one of those popups that says do you want to scan your computer for infections and they clicked on the X box thinking it would close out. Anyways another long post that no one will read, probably just skim through, hopefully all that is left is a straight forward virus/malware removal. Update all the necessary software like windows update, flash, java, adobe reader, etc... all those good stuff.
Also anyone know a free software alternative to norton ghost that allows a person to clone an image of the hard drive and saves a partition to the computer? I think I want to do that also, just to save future headache. If they caught a nasty virus again just recover the partition as it was once it was clean and updated as best as I could at the time. I installed a second hard drive on the comp and they are suppose to put all documents and stuff there in case they need to reformat windows or something like this was to happen. Again they didn't use it (sigh) This time McAfee provides backup through mozy. So I just set the computer to just backup the my documents folder. Worst case computer needs to be wiped at least they have a copy of there stuff online..
