Laptop wont boot past post

Put it back in the laptop and go into the BIOS and change the boot order to boot off Cd, USB, then HDD

If it's XP then boot off XP cd and select the recovery console otherwise find a friend with the Norton boot CD to scan the disk and clear the virus.

Otherwise from your desktop you can try navigating to the drive through a command prompt then doing
Fdisk /MBR

I'd do the work from the laptop though.

From the sound of it, you most likely have a rootkit installed on your partition.

If you have the laptop hard drive slaved onto another pc (you said you could see the data), then I would suggest running superantispyware on the slaved drive to remove all of the "bad" software on it.  You can get it for free by searching google and downloading it to your pc.

Once you have completed the scan, put the drive back in the laptop and try booting in safe mode first.  If that works, then shutdown and restart normally.

Hope this helps!

msincorp

Tried superantispyware and malware bytes. Can get it to boot off cd at all. Some of the files are missing on the drive as well, i think its beyond hope :(

well.. I'd suggest that you take the drive out of the system, slave it to another pc, run superantispyware, put it back in the pc, boot from cd and run the repair install.  One the repair is done, reboot the system and hopefully you'll be good to go.

Hope it works.

msincorp

i would totatally agree with the comment from noxcho. why mess about with antivirus etc. if you conect it to amother pc (you can use a mini adaption lead if you want to connect it to a regular desktop) then reformat it several times then run chkdsk to check its intergrity then re instsall it back into the laptop then run your restore disc if you have one. don't forget to install a good antivirus on re install.

here is another solution i found elswhere for you to try if you want some links etc
best of luck

To clean and to check if you system is clean do following:

Run malwarebytes in Safe Mode with Networking and update it before running a full system scan:
http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam-download.php

Then try HitManpro to make sure anything which might be left behind is clean:
32bit
http://dl.surfright.nl/HitmanPro35.exe
http://download.cnet.com/Hitman-Pro-3/3000-2239_4-10895604.html

64bit
http://dl.surfright.nl/HitmanPro35_x64.exe

If issue is not resolved by these tools try TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/downloads/utils/tdsskiller.zip
http://support.kaspersky.com/downloads/utils/tdsskiller.exe

Tutorial on TDSSKiller:
http://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/solutions?qid=208280684

or you could also try FixTDSS.exe from Symantec

http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/global/removal_tool/threat_writeups/FixTDSS.exe

If this does not resolve your issue then try Combofix:

Download Combofix
http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/sUBs/ComboFix.exe
http://www.forospyware.com/sUBs/ComboFix.exe
http://subs.geekstogo.com/ComboFix.exe

Tutorial on how to use combofix:
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix

Post logs here for further analysis

it does not make sense to me to try all kinds of repairs/updates BEFORE you know the disk is ok

exactly, do as i suggested and check that the hard drive is a good drive before trying anything else. best wishes

I've formatted the disc and reimaged it using acronis. My problem is that i cant get any disc to boot in the cd drive, i changed drives and it just doesnt work. Is there any way i can repair the windows installation on another pc?

yes all you need to do is boot the laptop, and constanly tap either f2 or sometimes f12 this will get you into the bios, then change the order in which you boot i.e. make the cd the first device press f10 to save and reboot. you may need to change it back when sorted. best of luck

When you say you changed drives, you mean you changed CD drives? are you sure the CD you are using is bootable? have you tried the CD in another PC?

So the image you put on the laptop HDD doesn't boot? how far does it get?

You can use a 3.5inch IDE converter to put that disk in a desktop and then go from there, once you have windows up and running, don't activate it. Run Sysprep, which will pull out all the hardware specific stuff and then it will turn the machine off. Take the HDD and put it back in the laptop, Windows should boot and find all the hardware

if you cannot boot from any cd, and you changed the cd drive, that means a bad motherboard.
you can verify the connector of the cd drive on mobo and drive first !

Does it boot from USB flash drive?

This question has been classified as abandoned and is being closed as part of the Cleanup Program. See my comment at the end of the question for more details.