morpheus2155
asked on
my AVG clean up cleaned me out
after a virus infection and subsequent AVG clean up (this was live through chat)my computer lost its internet connection and its ability to boot up. I tried a windows xp repair and at this point it keeps going into "setup is restarting" then reboot and cycles through this
I tried fixboot, fixmbr, talking to eat nicely, threatened it with a hard tool.
I could do a clean install but I rather not. Can I do surgery on this somehow?
I tried fixboot, fixmbr, talking to eat nicely, threatened it with a hard tool.
I could do a clean install but I rather not. Can I do surgery on this somehow?
Encrypted1024
That is going to be a hard one to talk you through. A clean install might be your best bet at this point.
ASKER
I Know the clean install is always there and I'm asking almost an artistic question but I have so many tweaks and mods on this drive I don't want to give up right away
Id agree...
At what point (minute mark) does the setup stop at, and reboot?
At what point (minute mark) does the setup stop at, and reboot?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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After running a complete virus scan, I'd run System File Checker (from windows). Make sure you have the installation media handy... ...You'll need it to run this command.
Open a command prompt and type: sfc /scannow
Next: Boot to the recovery console using the installation media and follow the steps below.
There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair any of the issues I noted in the opening of this guide. I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps. These commands are as follows:
C: CD ..
C: ATTRIB –H C:\boot.ini
C:ATTRIB –S C:\boot.ini
C:ATRIB –R C:\boot.ini
C: del boot.ini
C: BOOTCFG /Rebuild
C: CHKDSK /R /F
C: FIXBOOT
To “Go up a directory” in computing is to revert back to the directory above the current folder you’re operating in. If, for example, I’m in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory, and I want to get at a file in the WINDOWS directory, I would merely type CD .. And I would be taken out of the SYSTEM32 folder and up one level to WINDOWS. We’re going to do the same thing here from the WINDOWS folder to get to the basic root of C:
Now that we are at C: we can begin the process of repairing the operating system and that begins with modifying the attributes of the BOOT.INI file. Briefly, BOOT.INI controls what operating systems the Windows boot process can see, how to load them, and where they’re located on your disk. We’re going to make sure the file is no longer hidden from our prying eyes, remove the flag that sets it as an undeletable system file, and remove the flag that sets it as a file we can only read, but not write to.
To do this, we will issue three commands in this step:
C:ATTRIB –H C:\BOOT.INI
C:ATTRIB –R C:\BOOT.INI
C:ATTRIB –S C:\BOOT.INI
Now that we’ve modified the attributes for the BOOT.INI file, it’s up for deletion. The syntax for it is simple:
C:DEL BOOT.INI deletes the BOOT.INI file.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD
This command will search for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuild sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompile the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors. It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as an OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing. Secondly, if you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option. I will demonstrate both commands for the purpose of this guide, but do not set NOEXECUTE as a load option if you do not own one of these CPUs. For the “Enter Load Identifier” portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed. If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type “Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition” for the identifier. This gives the process some authenticity, if you’re keen on being a perfectionist. This step verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit.
Just type CHKDSK /R /F at the C:> prompt. Let it proceed; it could take in excess of 30 minutes on slower computers, when this is finished move on to the seventh and final step.
When you are at the C:> prompt, simply type FIXBOOT. This writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are “Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ?” just hit “Y,” then enter to confirm your decision.
Open a command prompt and type: sfc /scannow
Next: Boot to the recovery console using the installation media and follow the steps below.
There are eight commands you must enter in sequence to repair any of the issues I noted in the opening of this guide. I will introduce them here, and then show the results graphically in the next six steps. These commands are as follows:
C: CD ..
C: ATTRIB –H C:\boot.ini
C:ATTRIB –S C:\boot.ini
C:ATRIB –R C:\boot.ini
C: del boot.ini
C: BOOTCFG /Rebuild
C: CHKDSK /R /F
C: FIXBOOT
To “Go up a directory” in computing is to revert back to the directory above the current folder you’re operating in. If, for example, I’m in the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory, and I want to get at a file in the WINDOWS directory, I would merely type CD .. And I would be taken out of the SYSTEM32 folder and up one level to WINDOWS. We’re going to do the same thing here from the WINDOWS folder to get to the basic root of C:
Now that we are at C: we can begin the process of repairing the operating system and that begins with modifying the attributes of the BOOT.INI file. Briefly, BOOT.INI controls what operating systems the Windows boot process can see, how to load them, and where they’re located on your disk. We’re going to make sure the file is no longer hidden from our prying eyes, remove the flag that sets it as an undeletable system file, and remove the flag that sets it as a file we can only read, but not write to.
To do this, we will issue three commands in this step:
C:ATTRIB –H C:\BOOT.INI
C:ATTRIB –R C:\BOOT.INI
C:ATTRIB –S C:\BOOT.INI
Now that we’ve modified the attributes for the BOOT.INI file, it’s up for deletion. The syntax for it is simple:
C:DEL BOOT.INI deletes the BOOT.INI file.
BOOTCFG /REBUILD
This command will search for pre-existing installations of Windows XP and rebuild sundry essential components of the Windows operating system, recompile the BOOT.INI file and corrects a litany of common Windows errors. It is very important that you do one or both of the following two things:
Every Windows XP owner must use /FASTDETECT as an OS Load Option when the rebuild process is finalizing. Secondly, if you are the owner of a CPU featuring Intel’s XD or AMD’s NX buffer overflow protection, you must also use /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN as an OS Load Option. I will demonstrate both commands for the purpose of this guide, but do not set NOEXECUTE as a load option if you do not own one of these CPUs. For the “Enter Load Identifier” portion of this command, you should enter the name of the operating system you have installed. If, for example, you are using Windows XP Home, you could type “Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition” for the identifier. This gives the process some authenticity, if you’re keen on being a perfectionist. This step verifies the integrity of the hard drive containing the Windows XP installation. While this step is not an essential function in our process, it’s still good to be sure that the drive is physically capable of running windows, in that it contains no bad sectors or other corruptions that might be the culprit.
Just type CHKDSK /R /F at the C:> prompt. Let it proceed; it could take in excess of 30 minutes on slower computers, when this is finished move on to the seventh and final step.
When you are at the C:> prompt, simply type FIXBOOT. This writes a new boot sector to the hard drive and cleans up all the loose ends we created by rebuilding the BOOT.INI file and the system files. When the Windows Recovery Console asks you if you are “Sure you want to write a new bootsector to the partition C: ?” just hit “Y,” then enter to confirm your decision.
ASKER
well, this worked almost flawlessly. I keep getting a pop up about Microsoft Feed Sync failing, they must be hungry. Otherwise I'm back to normal. Great many thanks.
MShungry.jpg
MShungry.jpg
simply disable Microsoft error reporting like this
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Disable-Error-Reporting-Windows-XP-Server-2003.html
http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Disable-Error-Reporting-Windows-XP-Server-2003.html
ASKER
here's a new twist. After working for a few days today it tells me it can no longer verify the license and I need to activate. That's fine I click on yes. It displays the background picture and that's all. Of course if I say no to activation it logs me off and goes back to the login screen. So how to activate?