Scarthy © ® ™ Posted October 6, 2007 Report Share Posted October 6, 2007 Hi all ;),I have a friend who has a Dell PC. He has asked me to have a look at it for him. He say's that he thinks that he has had a virus. I have asked him to bring the comp to our's for a look.Since the 'virus' he has been considering "putting in a new 80GB HDD and formatting that then selling it. The comp has a 250GB HDD on SATA. The 80GB has been installed but is not showing (it is a normal IDE HDD). I have asked him to bring all his discs down as there is nothing to mess around with (it's on XP Media Centre Edition) - Still waiting for these...I have reconnected the SATA drive and booted it up. When Windows starts, there is NO taskbar showing and all I can do really is start 'Task Manager' + 'CMD' from it. He has Norton AV installed but out of date. I am running a check with that now (through task manager). I have tried the "sfc /scannow" command in the cmd but it shows "not responding" and the windows that came up are frozen (2 of them).Does anyone have any "things to try out" without me having the Windows discs? Or should I wait for these first? Are there any "restore to factory defaults" settings on Dell comps?Kids eh? Any help or advise most welcome - ThanX in advance ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 Can you try Ctrl+Esc to bring up the Start menu? It will also possibly show the Taskbar. It may be hidden. Drag it into view once you have located it.To check for malware, run http://housecall.trendmicro.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarthy © ® ™ Posted October 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 CTRL+esc does nothing. Right clicking/left clicking the desktop does nothing. When I run 'sfc /scannow' it hangs and does not respond after a while. All there is on the desktop is the wallpaper that it's owner had. When I get the task manager up and minimize it, it goes to where the taskbar was and can restore and that's it. I was going to try to get system restore to work, but cannot access the control panel or my computer (as an right click icon anyway) ? <--- Any ideas?I got the DVD drive working yesterday by disconnecting the ATA drive that they had fixed into the system. I am still waiting for the XP MCE disc from the owner to try to recover the Windows install. I think that some of the Windows files are missing from the install and am probobally stuck here without the discs?Is there anyway to access system restore from the CMD prompt? Any suggestions appreciated ;). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 Log on with admin rightsType at command prompt %systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exeand then ENTER Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 You can normally also access Control Panel by :-Clicking the Start buttonThen click Run. Type in the command "control" and press Enter/click OK to launch it. There are also individual Control Panel applets you can run in the same way :-For example, type "control folders" (without the quotes) in the Run dialog and press Enter/click OK. Here is a list of other commands you can use, and what they do:-control folders - Folder Optionscontrol userpasswords - User Accountscontrol userpasswords2 - Advanced User Accountscontrol desktop - Display Propertiescontrol printers - Printers and Faxescontrol mouse - Mouse Propertiescontrol keyboard - Keyboard Propertiescontrol netconnections - Network Connectionscontrol color - Display Properties \ Screensavercontrol date/time - Date and Time Propertiescontrol schedtasks - Scheduled Taskscontrol admintools - Administrative Toolscontrol telephony - Phone and Modem Optionscontrol fonts - Fonts Foldercontrol international - Regional and Language Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarthy © ® ™ Posted October 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 ThanX Boris.I have restored the comp to the earliest restore point (july07), and still NO taskbar!In CMD:-control - does nothingcontrol admintools - does nothingcontrol desktop - works!I think it needs the install CD really. I was going to try a reformat with my XP disc (he will lose his files this way but what else is there to do?). He said he would look for the disc but couldn't remember where it was last!?! <--- typical I thought that if I deleted his install and installed another, it would get rid of any virus's etc. And then once I had a running OS I could install diagnostics/ get online & mess around with files and software really? I don't know of any virus's that do this to a comp, but I bet there are some 'nasties' out there now! I was beginning to think that maybe some hardware was corrupt but I have found and run the Dell diagnostics software and it says everything is fine. I did notice when I ran 'system restore' that the taskbar appeared temporarily as the computer was shutting down!? It's strange? Either some Windows files are missing (but then where are the errors and "install cd prompts"?), or there is something "messing around" with the settings and stopping things running or working?I am just looking through Event Viewer to see if I can see anything in there? There are a few app hang errors for msn messenger and IE7. He said that he thought the virus might have come in through messenger? I did notice that he had 'Remote Assistance' ticked in System Properties which is a bad start in my book !Anyhow ThanX for your help to date - Keep your ideas coming and I will check back from time to time ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 Courtesy of kellys-korner .......... this should restore your taskbar (and Start Menu)To use the Regedits: Save the REG File to your hard disk. Double click it and answer yes to the import prompt. REG files can be viewed in Notepad by right clicking on the file and selecting Edit.http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/nodesktop.reg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 Oh ............. and this one should restore Admin Tools :)http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/msi.reg Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 You could also try booting with a Knoppix Live CD to get his data off first before you try installing XP ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarthy © ® ™ Posted October 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 ThanX 4 the help Boris. I had found the way to reset the comp to factory defaults before I read your replies. It has lost the data but at least we know it's working now.The owner has said that he will take £250 for the system if I want it (that's to me £300 was his 1st price). He is getting a Laptop.It is a Dell Dimension DXP051Intel Pentium 'D' Processor @ 2.80Ghz/2.79Ghz (dual core?)1GB RAMRadeon X600 256MB HyperMemory Graphics Card @ 400MhzHauppauge WinTV PVR PCI Card + Remote (that he hasn't brought BTW!)250GB SATA HDD + an 80GB ATA in the tower.19" TFT MonitorMouse + Keyboard2.1 Speakers (Dell) - No Sound Yet (may be due to the remote not been here?)So what do you think? Is it a good buy or a Goodbye? I think it will take another internal SATA HDD for storage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 You could probably build it or better for that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarthy © ® ™ Posted October 7, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 That's what I was thinking rong + if I built my own it would be what I want and how I wanted it. It's the Dell thing that restricts it really. I might offer him £200 and see what he says? There was one on E-Bay for that with 6hrs left. Oh I love decision making on Sundays [NOT] ! Anyone else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted October 7, 2007 Report Share Posted October 7, 2007 Build your own :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarthy © ® ™ Posted October 8, 2007 Author Report Share Posted October 8, 2007 Well I got it. Hehe ;) Another project pour moi :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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