Comp refuses to login to secure sites, then refuses to startup

G

Guest

This is going to be... involved. First off, my specs.

PCV-RX753 Sony VAIO Digital Studio PC
WinXP Home, SP2
Browser: IE 6
(Wired) Cable HiSpeed Internet

First off, for the last week or so, my computer has refused to let me login
to such sites as Yahoo!, Wells Fargo, and PayPal. I would load the pages
fine, and put in my login info fine, but upon pressing the sign in button, a
"Page Cannot Be Found" or "Page Is Unavailable" error pops up immediately. I
know it's not the internet connection, because using the other computer on
the network works just fine.

Now, last night my Norton Internet Security 2005 detected five "threats."
Four were Trojans, and the fifth was adware. The program "resolved" the
issues, and I deleted the files from the quarantine, since they had obvious
names like "trojan.something.blah" or whatever. Then I defragmented all the
drives-- C:\\, its partition D:\\, and H:\\-- did Disk Cleanup, and defragged
again. I suspended it and went to bed.

Fast-forward to today. After a scan of LavaSoft's AdAware, I decided to
fiddle with the IE settings to try to fix it. I ended up putting everything
at default settings, and decided to Restart. When I clicked Start, a message
popped up in the bottom-right corner and said, "File C:\\????? is damaged or
corrupt. Run Chkdsk utility." Or something like that. I tried to do so, but
probably did it wrong. (Run Program utility, and typed Chkdsk.) A window
with white text on a black field popped up briefly, then closed. So I tried
to Restart.

The ShutDown screen took forever. Then it tried to start up again.... and
froze on a black screen with white text, which usually flashes by very
quickly while loading. Like so:

In a box, there are two columns.

First column reads:
-------------------------
Diskette Drive A: 1.44M, 3.5in
Diskette Drive B: None
Pri. Master Disk: 60022MB, UDMA 5
Pri. Slave isk: 250059MB, UDMA 5 (not a typo-- there is no "D" in "Disk"
here)
Sec. Master Disk: CD-ROM, UDMA 2
Sec. Slave Disk: CD-ROM, UDMA 2

Second column reads:
-------------------------
Serial Port(s): 3F8
Parallel Port(s): 378
DRAM Type: DDR SDRAM
SPD On Module(s): Yes

Below that is a chart that seems to be about my (currently unused) wireless
internet card, since it starts with "PCI device listing.....". Then, at the
very bottom of the screen, is a blinking cursor (horizontal, not vertical--
ie, like an underscore). I can't do anything.


1. What do I do to be able to get into Windows again? [To at least save
some files from C:\\ before wiping it.]
2. What could cause this?
3. Am I pretty much limited to a System Restore or Reinstallation of WinXP
as a remedy?

Thank you, and I hope someone can help me.
 
H

Homer S.

This is going to be... involved. First off, my specs.

PCV-RX753 Sony VAIO Digital Studio PC
WinXP Home, SP2
Browser: IE 6
(Wired) Cable HiSpeed Internet

First off, for the last week or so, my computer has refused to let me login
to such sites as Yahoo!, Wells Fargo, and PayPal. I would load the pages
fine, and put in my login info fine, but upon pressing the sign in button, a
"Page Cannot Be Found" or "Page Is Unavailable" error pops up immediately. I
know it's not the internet connection, because using the other computer on
the network works just fine.

Now, last night my Norton Internet Security 2005 detected five "threats."
Four were Trojans, and the fifth was adware. The program "resolved" the
issues, and I deleted the files from the quarantine, since they had obvious
names like "trojan.something.blah" or whatever. Then I defragmented all the
drives-- C:\\, its partition D:\\, and H:\\-- did Disk Cleanup, and defragged
again. I suspended it and went to bed.

Fast-forward to today. After a scan of LavaSoft's AdAware, I decided to
fiddle with the IE settings to try to fix it. I ended up putting everything
at default settings, and decided to Restart. When I clicked Start, a message
popped up in the bottom-right corner and said, "File C:\\????? is damaged or
corrupt. Run Chkdsk utility." Or something like that. I tried to do so, but
probably did it wrong. (Run Program utility, and typed Chkdsk.) A window
with white text on a black field popped up briefly, then closed. So I tried
to Restart.

The ShutDown screen took forever. Then it tried to start up again.... and
froze on a black screen with white text, which usually flashes by very
quickly while loading. Like so:

In a box, there are two columns.

First column reads:
-------------------------
Diskette Drive A: 1.44M, 3.5in
Diskette Drive B: None
Pri. Master Disk: 60022MB, UDMA 5
Pri. Slave isk: 250059MB, UDMA 5 (not a typo-- there is no "D" in "Disk"
here)
Sec. Master Disk: CD-ROM, UDMA 2
Sec. Slave Disk: CD-ROM, UDMA 2

Second column reads:
-------------------------
Serial Port(s): 3F8
Parallel Port(s): 378
DRAM Type: DDR SDRAM
SPD On Module(s): Yes

Below that is a chart that seems to be about my (currently unused) wireless
internet card, since it starts with "PCI device listing.....". Then, at the
very bottom of the screen, is a blinking cursor (horizontal, not vertical--
ie, like an underscore). I can't do anything.


1. What do I do to be able to get into Windows again? [To at least save
some files from C:\\ before wiping it.]
2. What could cause this?
3. Am I pretty much limited to a System Restore or Reinstallation of WinXP
as a remedy?

Thank you, and I hope someone can help me.

Maybe. It sounds like your boot drive (C:\) is having trouble reading
data. But, if you can boot to your WinXP CD you may be able to fix it.
Try that then press 'R' to repair, which gets you to the repair console.
At the prompt (C:\), type chkdsk /r, then hit Enter. If you see lots and
lots of errors then you're probably screwed, but let it finish then try
to boot it again. Good luck.

HJS
 
G

Guest

The thing is, I don't really have a plain WinXP CD, I have four VAIO System
Restore disks and two VAIO Application Restore disks. Soooo... what next?
Someone suggested I download a Linux OS and run it from CD to try to save my
files, THEN running a restore. Is there a way to download a barebones WinXP
to run live from CD?
 
H

Homer S.

The thing is, I don't really have a plain WinXP CD, I have four VAIO System
Restore disks and two VAIO Application Restore disks. Soooo... what next?
Someone suggested I download a Linux OS and run it from CD to try to save my
files, THEN running a restore. Is there a way to download a barebones WinXP
to run live from CD?

YES! Here: http://www.optimizingpc.com/install/bootcd.html

Look at Bart's PE and the Emergency Boot CD. I've used Bart's PE to
recover from some serious shit. Good luck.

HJS
 

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