Virus infection & now cannot boot up

[JagCrusher]

Hi Guys,

It seems that I'm having similar problems to a couple of other posters :(

 

I have a Dell Dimension 5100 which is about 5 years old now. Running XP Home, 4Gb RAM, 160Gb Cdrive & and an additional 500Gb storage drive.

 

Late last week I picked up a nasty virus even though I have a non-Windows firewall & run AVG Free. This particular infection would not allow me to open/run any programs nor do a restore - I would get an error message saying whatever.exe is infected... it just directed me to it's website to buy their software (can't remember the name of the website unfortunately).

 

Anyway, when I next went back to my computer - thinking I could try Safe Mode - all I got, after the initial DELL/DOS screen is just a blank, black screen.

 

After joining this forum & having a look round I discovered that I needed to use F8 to enter safe mode (not an option given on start-up) but unfortunately if I try this I get half a screen of DOS prompts/instructions and then nothing else.

 

I just lifted these questions from Jelly Bean in another thread...

 

>>>Are you able to boot into Safemode?

No

 

>>>Does your hard drive show on the boot screen?

I think so (its difficult to check as I only have internet access at work)

 

>>>Does your hard drive show in BIOS?

Not sure

 

>>>Are you sure the recovery console is installed?

No idea

 

>>>Or are you using a recovery disk?

Don't have one

 

>>>Did you repeatedly tap F10 key on startup?

Very possibly as I'm sure that F10 was an option on the start screen (although now I only have F2-Setup & F12-Boot Menu).

 

I would really appreciate any help you guys could give to get my computer back up & running and then virus free.

 

Many thanks in advance!

Steve

[Stewie]

HI!

Have you got the original cd of Windows xp? Or can you borrow it somewhere? Insert it at start up and press f12 (Boot screen) then select boot from cd you should be able to repair windows. Try that, that might help.

 

Stewie

[Plastic Nev]

Considering that the computer can't even get into setup I doubt a repair would be even possible.

My advice at this point is to let our security experts know about this and hope that whatever malware that is causing it can be removed.

Please post your question in a new thread here-

 

Malware Infection Removal - Computer Support Forums - FreePCHelp.co.uk

 

Our security guys are quite busy so please be patient till one of them gets back to you.

Nev.