Got Virus... Hilarity Ensues (Needs the Help)

[stray]

When I get to the format utility, if I do a full format, won't it rewrite the MBR anyway?

No, I don't think so. Not even partitioning a drive does it automatically.

[Evil Elvis]

Windows stores NTLoader in the MBR (I believe).  You said you were getting NTLoader errors.

I thought a complete reformat would overwrite your old MBR, but I can't be certain.  Look at my old post for a MBR fix tool.

[schild]

Just tried that MBR Fix thing. Rebooting.

[schild]

Ok. That didn't work at all. I get:

Boot from CD: CDBOOT: NTLOADER not found.

[Evil Elvis]

This might help:
http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm

Actually, I'm not sure.  That error might mean it can't find the ntloader on the boot disk.  If you've tried different windows cd's, the cd being the problem does seem less likely though.  Dunno what to say.

[schild]

Hm. With XP, is there a way to force the computer to go into REINSTALL FUN MODE from Windows like "Upon reboot, drop into reinstall" cuz then I Can at least reformat and...well... reinstall.

[Evil Elvis]

Not that I know of.

I'd try to boot form a hirens boot disk or a linux live-cd first.  If that works, then your cd's might both be fucked.  Download a copy off bittorrent, and just use your registered cd key.

[schild]

LOL@MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I just fixed my MBR alright.

Oh yea.

Rewrote the first bit as 0.

GOODBYE HARDDRIVE PARTITIONS. HARDY HAR HAR. Good thing I backed everything up.

[Trippy]

When I get to the format utility, if I do a full format, won't it rewrite the MBR anyway?

Not necessarily (not that it matters now) but again steal Ookii's internal CD/DVD drive and use that.

[schild]

Can Someone with a floppy drive make a boot disk and grab all the files, zip them up and give them to me? I have some utilities for turning a flash drive into an XP Boot disk. I just need the dos system files. The internet isn't helping. People are charging for this shit - which is UNBELIEVABLE.

Oh, and it has to be XP Pro SP1 or 2. Thanks!

[schild]

:(

schilds computer needs food badly

[Trippy]

Can Someone with a floppy drive make a boot disk and grab all the files, zip them up and give them to me? I have some utilities for turning a flash drive into an XP Boot disk. I just need the dos system files. The internet isn't helping. People are charging for this shit - which is UNBELIEVABLE.

Oh, and it has to be XP Pro SP1 or 2. Thanks!

Why are you still trying to boot of an USB device when it isn't working? And I don't see how using the MS-DOS boot files is going to help you cause XP doesn't use them to boot itself (XP is not built on top of MS-DOS). And XP is one of the worst OSes to build an MS-DOS boot floppy from since it's missing a ton of the standard MS-DOS programs like FDISK -- something like Windows 98 is a much better OS for building MS-DOS floppies. But anyways here you go.

[schild]

Well, my computer was willing ONCE to boot off the goddamn USB driver. But never again. ONLY ONCE!

I think I give up.

[Trippy]

Well, my computer was willing ONCE to boot off the goddamn USB driver. But never again. ONLY ONCE!

I think I give up.

For the love of the FSM why are you not using an internal CD-ROM drive?

[schild]

One of my IDE channels is dead. I have 2 hard drives in there already. One is only 10 gigs, the other can not be allowed to be formatted. When Ookii gets home, I'll see if he's willing to grab me a cd-rom.

[Trippy]

One of my IDE channels is dead. I have 2 hard drives in there already. One is only 10 gigs, the other can not be allowed to be formatted. When Ookii gets home, I'll see if he's willing to grab me a cd-rom.

You only need one hard drive and 10 GB is enough to install XP on. You can also take out the drive that's in the external case and use that as your internal drive instead.

[schild]

I'm not exactly willing to sacrifice another HDD to this goddamn infernal machine.

[Trippy]

I'm not exactly willing to sacrifice another HDD to this goddamn infernal machine.

No, I don't mean one of your many external hard drives -- I meant your external CD/DVD-ROM drive.

[Yegolev]

One principle for installing Windows that has served me well over the years is to remove all hard disks except the one I am installing to.  Put the one you want to keep into COLD STORAGE until you have a working XP image on your boot drive.  This will, presumably, free up an IDE slot for Ookii's CD drive.  Once you have the install finished, reinstall your hardware as desired.  Might want to scan that second disk for a virus, for the children.

PCs suck.

[schild]

Heh. I ended up pulling an extra CD Rom I didn't know we had and removing everything but one harddrive. It's a minimal setup with no gaming, but it'll get the job done.

Oh, and it works. Windows is almost done installing.

[Lantyssa]

 :-D

[schild]

Microsoft should have a special webpage for people to update from when you're more than one service pack and 200 updates behind.

It should be located at "hell.microsoft.com."

[Yegolev]

Remember to uncheck IE7 in the SUPAR CRITICALZ section.

[schild]

why

[Strazos]

You shouldn't be using IE anyway.

[schild]

I don't need browser elitism in my thread, thanks.

[Ironwood]

In seriousness, No-one should be ticking that 'Remote Desktop Terminal Client V6'.

It's utter, utter, utter shite.

[Engels]

Why is the new remote desktop bad? I have used it at work and it didn't seem that different from the previous one.

[Ironwood]

It doesn't let you save any of your settings/User Credentials (Or it doesn't let me anyway) and it turns domains into IP addresses (again, me.)

I'm not the only one to complain, but I suspect that some may have differing stories.

The good news is that copying over the exe and dll from the old version overwrites it without the Windows Update thinking anything is wrong.

[Engels]

Ok, ya, that is extra fiddly, although I'm not sure why turning domain names into IP addresses is so bad, but then again, I've not come across a situation where that would limit what I could do. Personally, I've liked the remote desktop function in Linux (FC6 or Ubuntu, I can't remember which). It saves your settings just fine and is definately more responsive than WinXP.

[Strazos]

I don't need browser elitism in my thread, thanks.

It's only elitism if you don't care about system security.

[Furiously]

In the age of floppy-less computers someone REALLY needs to make a good free boot disk and have it ranked high on google. Talk about a nightmare.

[raydeen]

I don't need browser elitism in my thread, thanks.

It's only elitism if you don't care about system security.

I don't think it's browser elitism, just avoiding headaches. I haven't installed it due to the fact that quite a few of my co-workers had problems visiting and using websites with IE7 that they had no problems with under IE6. Fortunately they were able to uninstall it and revert back to 6. I trust The Fox implicitly and only use IE when necessary but that's only 'cause the ultra-pr0n sites aren't quick enough to catch The Fox and they eat IE for dinner.  :-D

[schild]

I have Firefox and IE7 on all 3 of my machines. To assume that I would only use IE is stupid.

As for system security, I'm pretty sure Straz knows as much about system security as he does cold fusion.

Edit: Btw, 90% chance the virus I got came through email and I exclusively used Thunderbird. And I'm really damn diligent in deleting probably 95% of my mail.

[schild]

ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD I'm back on my computer. God it's nice to be typing on a Model M instead of a Dell Quiet Key. Unfortunately I'm missing about 200GB of porn data due to removing a HDD. But now I'm too scurred of plugging it back in until I get another PC.