Introduction: I was given a laptop to repair that would no longer boot into standard mode. I attempted to boot it into safe mode but it stops at a logon prompt. I click okay (blank password, username=user or administrator) and the system BSOD and reboots (too quickly to read the message). I am confident the system is infected with virus or malware and just needs cleaned.
Work Performed: I pull the hard drive and slave it to a working computer. Then I run BING and make an image copy as backup (yes, I've done stupid things before without making backups first!) Now I run spyware and virus scans and remove trojans downloader.agent.as, downloader.rameh.e, downloader.agent.3.j, downloader.agent.3.b and downloader.agent.3.d. At least one of these is known for causing BSOD and rebooting. A file scan for spyware revealed nothing. The only files I deleted besides the trojans were \temp and IE temp (nearly 1.5 Gb). The hard drive is NTFS and scan disk completed without errors but the hard drive was very fragmented and was defragmented with Diskeeper 7 (probably a mistake but it happened automatically overnight much to my chagrin.) Once reinstalled in the laptop I get a process error see (1) below. I was able to boot into the repair console with XP PRO (not HOME) and logon to the XP Home partition as administrator. There I attempted a CHKDSK /R which found and fixed a few errors. That didn't help with booting so I tried FIXMBR and FIXBOOT and even copied and overwrote the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files. No improvement I contacted HP/Compaq support and they could only suggest a repair install with any XP Home CD so I bought one and tried that. The first time out I got the disk error message (2) see below. I rebooted as suggested and was able to begin a repair install which continued and rebooted which resulted in process error (1) see below. I'm stuck now because any futher attempts to boot from XP Home CD result in disk error (2) below before (F8) license agreement appears and any attempts to boot from hard drive result in disk error (2) see below.
Current Situation: The system reports (1) "Non-System Disk or disk error - replace and strike any key when ready". Attempts to Repair install XP Home fail with error before any options to accept license agreement with the following error (2).
A problem has been detected and windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer. PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FA
ILED
If this is the first time you have seen this stop error screen, restart your computer. If this screen appears again, check to make sure any new hardware or software is properly installed. If this is a new installation, ask your hardware or software manufacturer for any windows updates you might need.
If problems continue, disable or remove any newly installed hardware or software. Disable BIOS memory options such as caching or shadowing. If you need to use Safe Mode to remove or disable components, restart your computer, press F8 to select Advanced Startup Options, and then select Safe Mode.
Technical Information:
***STOP: 0x0000006B (0x80000016, 0x0000003, 0x0000000, 0x0000000)
Client had confessed to using the (horrible) Norton AntiVirus. I don't know if that is the Norton SystemWorks including (very horrible) "GoBack" program. See:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330134My Question (in two parts):
1) If GoBack is installed how can I remove it using my available tools?
2) What steps can I perform to either complete an XP Home Repair Install or an XP Pro Upgrade (I have both options available) so that no data is lost and no programs have to be reinstalled?
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