Woefully ignorant........

[Neil Ralley]

I'm having problems with my stepson's PC.

Windows will not load, a black and white screen comes up "apologising" and offering to reload in 3 types of safe mode, last configuration or normal windows. This is NOT the normal windows screen for the safe-mode options. My suspicion is that the machine has either been hacked or acquired a virus.

Selecting any of the options causes the m/c to begin to load windows but after the system info screen loading stops and the same error page reappears.

I managed to reach the real windows XP safe-mode options page but windows would not load from there either via any of the 8 or so options available.

What I have been able to do is to create some kind of boot disk on CD from my own windows XP m/c and by using that I can get to a DOS prompt and by typing in <dir c:> I get a list of files the names of some of which I recognise.

My question is - what now? I don't know any DOS and have no idea what to type after the A: prompt

The PC is a Sony Vaio vintage circa 2003 and runs on Windows XP.

Any & all help would be appreciated........

[Neil Ralley]

Post-script:

I'm not sure if this is going to make sense but when I load the CD with my home-made boot disk on it the DOS prompt seems to be related to the CD drive. If this is the case, can I somehow get from there into the main OS?

To clarify: The DOS prompt I am getting is

[ DR-DOS ] A:\>

I tried typing in command /c dir and it did list a few files which I did not recognise.

I'm wondering what would happen if I reassigned drive C to be drive A?

[GX1_Man]

If you are booting up with a CDROM it may well be reading that as A drive (assuming you have no floppy or it is a hot swappable drive bay.) Why you would want to get DR-DOS involved in this is beyond me, but can you boot with a Windows CD and get to recovery console? (assuming it is Win2000 or XP)

[merlin_2]

What o/s is on this pc.? the f8 key on boot should sort it if it winxp.........and it should display more than three on -screen options.?

[Neil Ralley]

GX1_MAN, thankyou for responding!

!. I have not been able to get into repair mode with the Sony recovery CDs - the only option it is giving me is 'back to factory settings' and all data lost. (This may not be the end of the world because the machine has been 90% for games and entertainment but the 10% of 'other' I would prefer to save if possible).

I have been able to reach a DOS edit screen but finding my way around in dos mode isn't easy and unless I am mistaken it is pretty messed up in there.

[Neil Ralley]

The OS is windows xp home and windows isn't loading in any mode. I do get the page with the full 8 or 9 (?) options when I hold the F8 key but none of them load windows. My suspicion is that the screen which comes up on initial boot is a fabrication - it has "we apologize..." at the start and as a friend said - that's no Microsoft screen, they don't apologize for anything!

[merlin_2]

check the hard drive
:


http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=3;action=display;num=1122425778

[Neil Ralley]

Hi Merlin,

Thanks! I downloaded one and created a bootable CD but when I put it into the broken machine I got the message that the exe  files could not be opened in DOS.

I really think that it is give-up time. Even if I can get into the system with DOS I have no clue what to start deleting to solve this problem. If as you suggest it is a hard-drive problem the data's gone anyway so I might as well just use the restore disks ...

[merlin_2]

dr dos.......say no more.........on an old machince....amaybe.....not a sony viao

[GX1_Man]

Do you have any way to back up data - an old hard drive laying around, a CD burner, anything???

[Neil Ralley]

I'm no further forward and maybe it is a hard drive crash.

Wife tells me that the loss of any data is inconsequential and so I reluctantly load the system restore CD and run it. It barely went a couple of secs when I got an error message and it will not run. Tried a second time - same result.

It appears as though I will need to either employ some skilled resources to do some kind of forensics on it OR just replace the hard-drive and reload the operating system. Not such a big deal at today's prices.

If it was my (mission critical, inadequately backed-up yady yady yady...m/c it would be a whole nother story but with a virtual game console that does file-sharing and email occasionally it is not such a big deal.

[GX1_Man]

How about trying a Linux Live CD to see if it is hardware or software" You just boot with it and if it runs, it was your Windows installation. If it doesn't run, you have a hardware problem that we can work on later. In either case it writes nothing to the hard drive so you have nothing to fear.

What are the system specs again? If you can't burn your own, I'll even send one to you. Just leave a PM for me.

[Neil Ralley]

Thanks, GX1, that sounds like a good plan.

I had a quick look via Google and one called SLAX seems to do what I want and if I can download it I can burn a bootable CD (?).

Not sure when I wil get to it. I have been working long hours lately.

Supposing that it turns out to be a hacked or virus-ridden OS - how do I clean it if the system rescue CD won't load?

Is the answer to both scenarios a new HD? If that is the case then maybe this is academic....

If I do need to replace the HD is there anything special I need to take into account in terms of the make and spec?

So many questions....

Thanks for the input,

Neil

[GX1_Man]

Some manufacturer's will not allow the restore CD to be used on anything other than the original or identical drive - don't know for sure with yours, but it may or may not work.

Since you're using Windows a "hacked and virus-ridden OS" is more than a possibility. Let's hope a simple restore will work, but I would try the Linux CD first. It will be good information to have. Do you just have one partition on the drive or are there hidden partitions? What make/model is this?

[Neil Ralley]

Just leaving this to thank you folks for your very helpful input.

The problem is not fixed because, as I said, I am pretty thinly stretched and time is at a premium but I did not just want to evaporate without saying thankyou.

If any of you are in the market for gifts you might check out one or other of my e-commerce sites. The least commercial (which gets the traffic and has consistently held a top 3 listing on Google for keywords "stained glass" is <http://www.stainedglassphotography.com>

Others are <http://www.MQGifts.com> <http://www.cafepress.com/ralley> and <http://www.cafepress.com/heavenlybody>

Best Regards,

Neil

[merlin_2]

Thanks for the post.........to lead us to advert.........so when you have a real problem........we are hear.....<sucks eggs>