Won't boot. Virus?

[Mike Meier]

Tonight, Sunday, while working at home, and during "60
Minutes", my Windows 2000 Pro (not server) system failed
to boot. It makes it to about 2/3rds through the screen
with the Windows logo, then I get a bsod mentioning stop
error 7B - boot device not accessible, I think. (The
system is at home. I'm at work sending this
message.) "Getting Started" says it is probably a virus.
None of the Safe Mode approaches worked, but running
Recovery Console from the CD-ROM is successful in getting
the system started. I am logged on as the administrator.
Now what do I do? How do I find and eliminate the virus?
I can't find anything useful at Symantec. Do I have to
reinstall Windows 2000?

By the way, my system is connected to the Internet using
DSL, through a router, and I'm running Norton SystemWorks
Pro 2003 and Norton Personal Firewall. Norton Antivirus
scans the computer every night. How did this happen?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Karl Levinson [x y] mvp]

The exact word for word error message would be helpful, if possible.
Searching www.google.com, www.google.com/advanced_group_search and
www.microsoft.com/support for that error message is good as well.

I'm not necessarily certain it's a virus. If it was a virus, I might
recommend putting the hard drive into another computer and scan it
from there. Another alternative might be to install Windows to a
second folder on the original hard drive, or using a boot floppy from
your antivirus vendor or www.f-secure/products with the latest
antivirus updates to scan the drive [unless it's formatted in NTFS].
Depending on what the search above and/or the antivirus scan tell you
about the most likely causes for your error message, off the top of my
head I might consider problems with a newly installed driver or patch,
loose or failing hardware, corrupt hard drive, etc.

 

[Mike Meier]

Thanks.
I was reinstalling my Linksys router software when this
all happened.

The error was definitely Stop:Error 0x0000007B,
inaccessible boot device. "Getting Started" says it
happens when the I/O system could not be loaded. It also
gave some of the same reccomentdation you have. By the
way, I've got SCSI on this system, and I use NTFS. A
reply on another board said he has seen this problem a
number of times on systems with SCSI drives.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
The exact word for word error message would be helpful, if possible.
Searching www.google.com,

www.google.com/advanced_group_search and

www.microsoft.com/support for that error message is good as well.

I'm not necessarily certain it's a virus. If it was a virus, I might
recommend putting the hard drive into another computer and scan it
from there. Another alternative might be to install Windows to a
second folder on the original hard drive, or using a boot floppy from
your antivirus vendor or www.f-secure/products with the latest
antivirus updates to scan the drive [unless it's formatted in NTFS].
Depending on what the search above and/or the antivirus scan tell you
about the most likely causes for your error message, off the top of my
head I might consider problems with a newly installed driver or patch,
loose or failing hardware, corrupt hard drive, etc.



"Mike Meier" <[email protected]> wrote

Tonight, Sunday, while working at home, and during "60
Minutes", my Windows 2000 Pro (not server) system failed
to boot. It makes it to about 2/3rds through the screen
with the Windows logo, then I get a bsod mentioning stop
error 7B - boot device not accessible, I think. (The
system is at home. I'm at work sending this
message.) "Getting Started" says it is probably a virus.
None of the Safe Mode approaches worked, but running
Recovery Console from the CD-ROM is successful in getting
the system started. I am logged on as the administrator.
Now what do I do? How do I find and eliminate the virus?
I can't find anything useful at Symantec. Do I have to
reinstall Windows 2000?

By the way, my system is connected to the Internet using
DSL, through a router, and I'm running Norton SystemWorks
Pro 2003 and Norton Personal Firewall. Norton Antivirus
scans the computer every night. How did this happen?

Thanks in advance.

.