Cannot boot into even safe mode

[KenV]

My daughter has a Dell laptop with XP Pro using NTFS. She tells me it will
not boot up even into safe mode--that it gets to a certain point then
automatically reboots itself in a never ending cycle.

It sounds as though she could have a worm or virus but she can't get to her
AV software.

Is there any way around this other than reinstalling Windows from a CD? Does
she have to reformat the HD to get rid of the virus?

There doesn't seem to be any way to create an emergency virus remover using
the floppy drive.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ken

 

[DJ Borell]

My daughter has a Dell laptop with XP Pro using NTFS. She tells me it will
not boot up even into safe mode--that it gets to a certain point then
automatically reboots itself in a never ending cycle.

It sounds as though she could have a worm or virus but she can't get to
her AV software.

Is there any way around this other than reinstalling Windows from a CD?
Does she have to reformat the HD to get rid of the virus?

There doesn't seem to be any way to create an emergency virus remover
using the floppy drive.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

The easiest way to scan a system for a virus when it won't boot is to hook
the HD up to a working system and scan it from their. This is possible with
a laptop, but requires an adapter. You can also try scanning by booting
from an AV CD (ie, Norton), but a scan in this fashion is rarely thorough
enough.

However, this problem may be more hardware related than virus. Try a repair
install. Instructions here:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

If there is, in fact, a virus, doing a repair install will not likely get
rid of it. In that case, after the repair install, run a scan with an
updated AV engine. If that won't get rid of it, and you can't install the
HD on a separate system, a format / clean-install may be your only viable
remaining option.

 

[River_Rat]

Have you tried Last Good Known Configuration?
Turn the computer on and press and hold the Control button when it starts to
boot and see if it will take you to the desktop.

You can try to do a system restore to an earlier date from the Command
Prompt.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304449&Product=winxp

--
Good Day
River Rat




My daughter has a Dell laptop with XP Pro using NTFS. She tells me it will
not boot up even into safe mode--that it gets to a certain point then
automatically reboots itself in a never ending cycle.

It sounds as though she could have a worm or virus but she can't get to her
AV software.

Is there any way around this other than reinstalling Windows from a CD? Does
she have to reformat the HD to get rid of the virus?

There doesn't seem to be any way to create an emergency virus remover using
the floppy drive.

Any ideas would be appreciated. Thanks.

Ken

 

[Ron Sommer]

inline

The easiest way to scan a system for a virus when it won't boot is to hook
the HD up to a working system and scan it from their. This is possible
with a laptop, but requires an adapter. You can also try scanning by
booting from an AV CD (ie, Norton), but a scan in this fashion is rarely
thorough enough.

An AV CD scan will not scan NTFS partitions.

 

[KenV]

Thank you, everyone, for your input. We are working on it now and I'll leave
another post if anything solves the problem.

Ken