XP reboots, in all F8 modes, virus problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter !Allen Lasting
  • Start date Start date
A

!Allen Lasting

Hi,

My friend's wife's computer started acting funny a couple of weeks ago, and
it gradually got worse. From talking on the phone it sounded like a virus
in a restore point, but by the time he got around to looking at it, it would
no longer boot at all. Somehow she had managed to get it to boot and could
get some online time before it rebooted so she just used it that way until
it stopped booting altogether.
So now it's on my dining room table.

Here's what I did so far:
Tried normal boot. No Go.
Tried to get it to come up in Safe Mode. No Go.
Tried to get it to come up from last known good restore point. No go.
Set it to boot from the A drive and got to a dos prompt with a dos system
disk.
Got vcleaner on a floppy from Grissoft's web site, and tried to run it. No
luck, it won't run from a dos prompt.
I have an old 500 MB hard drive with win98 on it. Took the XP drive out,
and set the system up using win98.
Put the XP drive back in as a Slave hoping I could run Vcleaner on the slave
drive. No luck because
the XP drive doesn't show up in My Computer. I guess it's because 98 is Fat
32 and XP is NTFS so 98 can't see it.

Which is the end of the line for me. I don't know what else to do. Can
anybody give me some advice on how to
proceed? Due to the time involved in re-loading XP, all her software, and
loosing all her data files, I'd rather
fix it if I can, or take it to somebody who could, if I can't so I don't
have to deal with "you lost all my files!"

TIA for any ideas,

Al
 
won't boot from a dos disk? 98 or Me or
something...www.bootdisk.com....... if it won't boot to dos then its
not a "software problem". Since safe mode won't boot, the restore
point thing doesn't apply, as its not loaded nor is it using a restore
point to boot currently. Since it won't boot to SM, I would say
possibly a memory problem or maybe a HD malfunction. Can you run
scandisk from dos?
 
ooops missed part of that...........try and boot from the CD-ROM
(XP) and do a repair install
 
Hi,

My friend's wife's computer started acting funny a couple of weeks ago, and
it gradually got worse. From talking on the phone it sounded like a virus
in a restore point, but by the time he got around to looking at it, it would
no longer boot at all. Somehow she had managed to get it to boot and could
get some online time before it rebooted so she just used it that way until
it stopped booting altogether.
So now it's on my dining room table.

Here's what I did so far:
Tried normal boot. No Go.
Tried to get it to come up in Safe Mode. No Go.
Tried to get it to come up from last known good restore point. No go.
Set it to boot from the A drive and got to a dos prompt with a dos system
disk.
Got vcleaner on a floppy from Grissoft's web site, and tried to run it. No
luck, it won't run from a dos prompt.
I have an old 500 MB hard drive with win98 on it. Took the XP drive out,
and set the system up using win98.
Put the XP drive back in as a Slave hoping I could run Vcleaner on the slave
drive. No luck because
the XP drive doesn't show up in My Computer. I guess it's because 98 is Fat
32 and XP is NTFS so 98 can't see it.

Which is the end of the line for me. I don't know what else to do. Can
anybody give me some advice on how to
proceed? Due to the time involved in re-loading XP, all her software, and
loosing all her data files, I'd rather
fix it if I can, or take it to somebody who could, if I can't so I don't
have to deal with "you lost all my files!"

TIA for any ideas,

Al
Click to expand...

- take the drive to a shop where they can scan and disinfect it.

- build a Bootable Windows XP CD and scan and disinfect it yourself.
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
This is what I'd do, but I already have a bootable CD handy.

- convert the drive to FAT32 and scan it from DOS.
http://www.partitionmagic.com/partitionmagic/

- install a NTFS driver to your W98 setup and scan the NTFS drive that
way.

- Do a repair install of XP so you don't have to reinstall the software,
but this probably wouldn't fix a virus problem. It might let you boot
into the system long enough to fix it however.
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_install.htm
 
IMHO that would be the best thing to try first.
Click to expand...

I was just listing things to try, not any preference in order to try them.
I'd do this first too, if I didn't have the PE disc.
 
Hey a friend has a similar sounding issue at present - after D/L a game form
Download.com and a critical update from MS (maybe pure coincidence) he can't
boot into XP - and repair install from the XP CD does not work either!
'course a problem is that with any FAT boot disk you can't see NTFS
partitions, but worryingly CHKDSK shows that the disk is 40gb with 38gb free
space! Apart from XP on the drive he did have many GB's or documents /
photos - so god knows where it's all gone - or is it just that from DOS it
is not seeing the NTFS files at all and is reporting it as free space? If
all the files have gone, then I guess that is why repair install does not
work, as the CD can't find any windowsfiles to repair...
To add to the mystery, he tried fresh install from his Evesham XP disk, and
that won't work either!
I have run out of ideas to help - can anyone suggest other stuff to try?
 
thanks for advice. The consensus looks like I should try to do a repair
install first. Is this the same as installing 98 over itself? I've done
that in the past successfully. I mean, is it the same idea where the data
and the installed software arn't deleted?

Al
 
thanks for advice. The consensus looks like I should try to do a repair
install first. Is this the same as installing 98 over itself? I've done
that in the past successfully. I mean, is it the same idea where the data
and the installed software arn't deleted?
Click to expand...

Yes.
 
Hi,
No go on the repair solution. It started ok, and then when it was at 13
minutes to lift off, it hung giving this error msg:

unregmp2.exe
procedure entry point GETIUMS could nt be located in the dynamic link
library MSDART.dll.

I hope in layman's terms this intrepets as, "hey, it's cool. no problem
here, hit these keys, and all's well"

You guys know the which keys they may be?

Al
 
I just found this and it looks promising:

Error "Unregmp2.exe - entry point not found, the Procedure entry point
GETIUMS could not be located in the Dynamic link library MSDART.DLL."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

The above error may occur when the Windows XP clean or a repair installation
is running.

To fix this problem, please do the following:

1. Press SHIFT+F10 to bring up the command prompt.

2. Type TASKMGR.EXE in the DOS window and press enter. This will open the
Task Manager.

NOTE: If this doesn't work, try CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.

4. In the Task Manager, select the error message window in the Application
list and click End Task.

5. Click the Processes tab and select the process UNREGMP2.EXE and click End
Process.

6. Exit the Command Prompt and resume the installation process.

This should help.
 
!Allen Lasting said:
Hi,

My friend's wife's computer started acting funny a couple of weeks ago,
and it gradually got worse. From talking on the phone it sounded like a
virus in a restore point, but by the time he got around to looking at
it, it would no longer boot at all. Somehow she had managed to get it
to boot and could get some online time before it rebooted so she just
used it that way until it stopped booting altogether. So now it's on my
dining room table.

Here's what I did so far: Tried normal boot. No Go. Tried to get it to
come up in Safe Mode. No Go. Tried to get it to come up from last known
good restore point. No go. Set it to boot from the A drive and got to a
dos prompt with a dos system disk. Got vcleaner on a floppy from
Grissoft's web site, and tried to run it. No luck, it won't run from a
dos prompt. I have an old 500 MB hard drive with win98 on it. Took the
XP drive out, and set the system up using win98. Put the XP drive back
in as a Slave hoping I could run Vcleaner on the slave drive. No luck
because the XP drive doesn't show up in My Computer. I guess it's
because 98 is Fat 32 and XP is NTFS so 98 can't see it.

Which is the end of the line for me. I don't know what else to do. Can
anybody give me some advice on how to proceed? Due to the time
involved in re-loading XP, all her software, and loosing all her data
files, I'd rather fix it if I can, or take it to somebody who could, if
I can't so I don't have to deal with "you lost all my files!"

TIA for any ideas,

Al
Click to expand...

Well, doing a repair install will save the programs and settings but it'll
probably reinfect itself as soon as it comes back up.

Get a larger test drive, install XP on it, and then do what you were trying
to do with Win98. Except I'd put a virus scanner on it and do a complete
virus scan and not just for the one you think it is.

Then put it back as the main drive and do a repair from the install CD. Not
the first two repair options it gives (recovery console or recovery
floppy). Go on as if doing a fresh install and then when it finds the
existing system it'll again ask if you want to do a new install or try
repairing the exiting installation. Say repair at that point. If it doesn't
ask then don't continue or else it'll do a fresh install clearing out the
registry (and losing the programs install).
 
!Allen Lasting said:
I just found this and it looks promising:

Error "Unregmp2.exe - entry point not found, the Procedure entry point
GETIUMS could not be located in the Dynamic link library MSDART.DLL."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

The above error may occur when the Windows XP clean or a repair installation
is running.

To fix this problem, please do the following:

1. Press SHIFT+F10 to bring up the command prompt.

2. Type TASKMGR.EXE in the DOS window and press enter. This will open the
Task Manager.

NOTE: If this doesn't work, try CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.

4. In the Task Manager, select the error message window in the Application
list and click End Task.

5. Click the Processes tab and select the process UNREGMP2.EXE and click End
Process.

6. Exit the Command Prompt and resume the installation process.

This should help.
Click to expand...

Yes. You probably have an original issue CD with SP1 installed on the
system later. Loves to do that.

That fix works. But if you don't remember it, my common problem, hitting
continue about 50 million times works as well. It just wears out fingers.

Also, after the repair there will be things 'missing' and programs will
attempt to 'install' themselves again. Just cancel those and reinstall SP1
(and your I.E. updates). Everything will then automagically reappear and
they'll stop complaining that they're not installed.
 
Hi David,
Thanks for your tips.
You were right. I got it up, but it reinfected itself.
So this morning, I just wiped it and reinstalled.
I'll probably get killed for that, but hey, at
least it works again.

Al
 
!Allen Lasting said:
Hi David,
Thanks for your tips.
You were right. I got it up, but it reinfected itself.
So this morning, I just wiped it and reinstalled.
I'll probably get killed for that, but hey, at
least it works again.

Al
Click to expand...

Uh, I guess it's too late to talk about ways to get the data off it =:O)
 
Uh, I guess it's too late to talk about ways to get the data off it =:O)
Click to expand...

Hi,

Yeah, too late for me to do it, but when she picked it up she actually was
very nice
about it. Her husband had backed up her stuff about a month ago
figuring she hadn't. Whew....what good luck.

Who ever wrote the virus/worm/whatever that got her machine
knew what he/she was doing. When it started rebooting again,
after I thought I had it fixed, I cleared the cmos settings and that
didn't work. Then I suspected the power supply. Vexing to say the least.
Swapped out two, and then said, "Oh well, time to get the fire hose."

Al
 
Hi David,
Thanks for your tips.
You were right. I got it up, but it reinfected itself.
So this morning, I just wiped it and reinstalled.
I'll probably get killed for that, but hey, at
least it works again.

Al
Click to expand...

Soon as you can download a current version of KNOPPIX. With that
you'll have access to the data from which you can then save to a CD.

That computer sounds like a ready candidate for Linux.
 
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