Can't boot in any mode

[mrdogman]

Hi,

I'm working on my wife's computer -- she either caught a virus or tried to start some Palm OS program or something, she can't say for sure. I have no control over her. Anyway, the situation now is that I cannot complete a boot in normal mode, safe mode, or any other way

EXCEPT the following; boot normal, windows XP comes up, I hit cntrl-alt-del right away, and as soon as that window appears, log off the user, and then log on as guest. It will then complete the boot to windows XP.

Otherwise, it blue screens me while setting up the desktop.

In Safe mode, it crashes before the Windows screen even comes up.

The blue screen reads:

Bad_Pool_Caller

0x000000c2 0x00000007 0x15fff87D a986062d

m_hook.sys Address a9c2962d base at a0c26000 datestamp 45b52cfb

I've looked up m_hook.sys, it seems to be a nasty. Removal instructions all require a successful boot, however. But when I log on as guest, I have no access to the directories where the virus files might be.

The computer a SONY VAIO, running Windows XP home edition.

thanks for any help,

MrDogman

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Welcome to the Windows Forum!

You write that you can (with some tricks) successfully login to Windows as 'Guest'; can you login as 'Administrator'?

[tk27]

Hi,

I'm working on my wife's computer -- she either caught a virus or tried to start some Palm OS program or something, she can't say for sure. I have no control over her. Anyway, the situation now is that I cannot complete a boot in normal mode, safe mode, or any other way

EXCEPT the following; boot normal, windows XP comes up, I hit cntrl-alt-del right away, and as soon as that window appears, log off the user, and then log on as guest. It will then complete the boot to windows XP.

Otherwise, it blue screens me while setting up the desktop.

In Safe mode, it crashes before the Windows screen even comes up.

The blue screen reads:

Bad_Pool_Caller

0x000000c2 0x00000007 0x15fff87D a986062d

m_hook.sys Address a9c2962d base at a0c26000 datestamp 45b52cfb

I've looked up m_hook.sys, it seems to be a nasty. Removal instructions all require a successful boot, however. But when I log on as guest, I have no access to the directories where the virus files might be.

The computer a SONY VAIO, running Windows XP home edition.

thanks for any help,

MrDogman

can you internet with Guest account? if yes, try http://onecare.live.com/site/en-us/default.htm

and do a full system scan. from what i read this is a rootkit , there's what wikipedia has to say about removing them:

"There is a body of opinion that holds this to be forbiddingly impractical. Even if the nature and composition of a rootkit is known, the time and effort of a system administrator with the necessary skills or experience would be better spent re-installing the operating system from scratch"

so backup-reinstall os-restore bkp.

good luck!

[cozofdeath]

To get access to those directories you will probably have to use the runas command (runas /user:%userdomain%\owner cmd.exe) from a command prompt, you will have to change the owner to whatever username you are trying to enter. In case you never used the command prompt, click the Start button, select Run, type cmd.exe and thats it. After your running as that user you can use the cd command to change directories or if you need help on using it type cd /? and it will give a description and examples of how to use it. Then the del command to delete the file.

Doing this will save you from having to use a live cd or the recovery console to access the folders/files.

[mrdogman]

Welcome to the Windows Forum!

You write that you can (with some tricks) successfully login to Windows as 'Guest'; can you login as 'Administrator'?

Hi,

Nope, can't seem to login in as administrator in any of several ways that I tried. That seems to limit my ability to follow the other suggestions from the other guys. Can't load any file checking software, although I can access the internet.

I got to the recovery console, but can't really figure out what to do with it. I can't go looking in any directories of interest.

thanks,

dogman

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

You can try cozofdeath's suggestion from the Guest account.

[Scarecrow Man]

You can do a repair installation. Here are a few guides to help you.

Repairing a Windows XP Installation

My computer just crashed. I can't load windows

[mrdogman]

Hi,

Okay, thanks for all of your suggestions and for bothering to read my note and reply. Although none of the suggestions helped, I learned a lot by trying them. The big problem was I couldn't log on as an admin., so I couldn't do any of those things, nor get into the important directories to save anything. The system boot into windows, but while loading the user files (I guess) it encountered something that made it crash. Also, booting into safe mode crashed way before the desktop appeared. Boot to last good config also didn't work.

To complitcate things, the owner account (the only one on the machine) had a blank password. So trying a "runas" command didn't work, because it didn't accept a blank password.

This is how I finally fixed it, for those who are interested. I used a little known law from probability theory: "If you try random stuff enough times, you will succeed. Or go insane." Did you ever find a combination lock in high school and just start spinning it during some class (usually English class for me), and all of a sudden it popped open? Then you had to do it all again and watch the numbers this time to see what the combo was?

Well I used the same approach. When the desktop appeared, I hit control-alt-delete to bring up the task manager, and then just started picking processes at random and aborting them, hoping to halt the loading of stuff, while maintaining the working windows environment. Miraculously (and this never happens to me!), this worked on like the 6th or 7th time! All of a sudden, I was logged on with admin priveleges. I quick created another identity with admin access, put in passwords for identities, removed spaces from identity names -- just in case I was summarily ejected from Windows. I wasn't, but ...

So, I was able to back everything up. I tried to figure out what had happed, but Norton was simply not working -- got a fatal error on any attempt to use it. So I just said forget it, and did a C: disk restore to original configuation.

that's the story, thanks again, everyone.

dogman

[misteralman]

Hope this helps.

I had some serious issues regarding my Windows Operating System. Bought a cheap disc from eBay that resolved all my issues and restored my PC even though it would not boot! Took me a couple of hours messing around but saved my PC from the recycle bin. I would recommend this to anyone with virus problems, wanting to recover lost data or if your PC simply will not boot (like mine).

Link to ebay deleted - doug

[Scythe]

Ehh, that seems like some serious malware she had gotten, wonder where she got it from ;o If you're experienced and can't seem to beat on-load viruses, I suggest a live bootable partition manager, partition magic is a good one if you can get a copy. You can then siphon like 5gb or something off the windows partition into empty space, install a linux distro (temporarily, at least), mount the windows partition with read/write access, and go to town on any bootdir nasties. After that's all said and done, you can boot into windows using grub. If all went well and your windows is recovered, you can download a windows partition manager, and delete the linux and move the space back into the windows partition (or keep linux!)

Just my little method for fixing serious windows breaks, works with just about any form of break since windows-set file protection won't stop linux.

[Boris]

Not a lot of point in commenting on a four year old topic.

Closed