gale said:
Somehow a virus attacked my system. I am running Windows XP Home Edition. I
no longer have any access rights. I cannot downloan, install or view any
security settings. The message "This operation has been cancelled due to
restrictions in effecr on this computer. Please contact your system
Administrator". Any solution to restoring my access rights other than
reinstalling the system and would that work? I cannot access the system
registry and cannot find the control panel.
No, sorry. Your computer has been too damaged and you need to do a clean
install. If you forgot to back up your data and it needs to be
retrieved, you may be able to do this. Here are some techniques to pull
data off the drive:
1. Pull the drive and slave it in a computer running a working install
of XP/Vista. Depending on the target drive's characteristics, you may
need a drive adapter; i.e., laptop-to-IDE or a SATA controller card,
etc. A usb/firewire external drive enclosure works very well, too. Use
the working Windows Explorer to copy the data to the rescue system's
hard drive and then burn the data to cd or dvd.
NOTE: I would actually not do this with a drive that was as badly
infected as yours because I prefer to be cautious in my shop. I'm only
including the technique to be thorough. You would really be better off
doing #2 below and I would use Knoppix.
2. Boot the target computer with either a Bart's PE or a Linux live cd
such as Knoppix and retrieve the data that way. Here is general
information on using Knoppix for this:
You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it. Note
that the default mouse action in the window manager used by Knoppix
(KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS Windows'
double-click. If you want to burn CD/DVDs, use the K3b program.
http://www.knoppix.net
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ - Bart's PE Builder
I understand that you didn't want to hear this, but in my experience you
*will* need to do a clean install.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows -
What you will need on-hand
Standard disclaimer: I can't see and test your computer myself, so these
are just suggestions based on many years of being a professional
computer tech; suggestions based on what you've written. If you can't do
the work yourself, take the machine to a professional computer repair
shop (not your local equivalent of BigComputerStore/GeekSquad).
Malke
