Unable to boot. Desperate plea for help.

[Guest]

Here's my issue:
Couple of days ago I boot up my WinXP Professional and realized that I got a
virus or, to be exact, I think I got an adware. I had a bunch of IE windows
poping up that seem to be generated by UCMore and OuterInfo programs. I tried
to uninstall but was not succesful. So I decided to go into Startup using
msconfig and disable some processes that I thought were "suspicious".
Unfortunately, I have disabled too much.
I am now unable to boot. I have tried to run Repair, I have tried to fix
using Recovery Console and enabled some services. However, I still cannot
boot. I get to screen that says: "Starting Windows.." (or something like
that, it blink pretty fast) and then PC reboots.
I am desperate! Any ideas what I can try or what to do?
Thank you SO much in advance for your help!

 

[Joe Grover]

You are unable to boot in safe mode?

 

[Guest]

Correct. I am unable to Safe Mode boot. I am unable to boot using "Last Known
Good Configuration" either, because System Restore has been disabled.

 

[BillW50]

Correct. I am unable to Safe Mode boot. I am unable to boot using
"Last Known Good Configuration" either, because System Restore has
been disabled.

Why was it disabled? That baby can save your butt!

In the future, also get ERUNT (free) and BartPE (free too). They will
really save your butt.

 

[AJR]

1. Boot from the XP CD
2. Go through process of setup.
3. Ignore option of Recovery Console.
4. Setup will proceed
5. Should receive message that setup looking for a Windows installation
6. Finds Windows currently installed.
7. Select "offer" to repair the installation.
8. Setup proceeds.

Your choice - fingers crossed or hope!.
Note - if Windows installation, step 6, not found - bad situation!

 

[Guest]

AJR,

Unfortunately, I have ran Repair already. It did not help...

Bilw50,

What those apps do? Would they save my butt NOW? Or is it too late?

Any other ideas, everybody?

 

[Guest]

If you had endabled System recovery before this problem, you should read this
article - http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/307545/ - it
describes, how to recover register and if you do this, services should run as
before... good luck!

 

[Guest]

Peto,

Unfortunately, I do not have it enabled and did not have it enabled prior to
encountering this issue. I have disabled it originally per the instructions I
was following to remove adware. Don't recall where I got them... But I should
not have done it.
Either way, at this point I am still unable to boot. I see WinXP splash
screen, I see "Windows Starting up..." message and then PC reboots.

Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

I understand, but maybe you should check, if there is any restore point,
maybe from the first startup of your computer... Better than nothing. If not,
I think, you should replace registry, whre is info about services.... I had
problem with starting services too (I also stopped too much of them, but I
was able to login my computer - but I wasnt able to do many things..) and I
replaced registry grom my backup and everything was ok..

 

[Rock]

Here's my issue:
Couple of days ago I boot up my WinXP Professional and realized that I got
a
virus or, to be exact, I think I got an adware. I had a bunch of IE
windows
poping up that seem to be generated by UCMore and OuterInfo programs. I
tried
to uninstall but was not succesful. So I decided to go into Startup using
msconfig and disable some processes that I thought were "suspicious".
Unfortunately, I have disabled too much.
I am now unable to boot. I have tried to run Repair, I have tried to fix
using Recovery Console and enabled some services. However, I still cannot
boot. I get to screen that says: "Starting Windows.." (or something like
that, it blink pretty fast) and then PC reboots.
I am desperate! Any ideas what I can try or what to do?
Thank you SO much in advance for your help!

Is there a full backup of important data? If not do that first, (and ask
yourself why don't you have a current backup). Here are some ways to
backup the data.

1. Take the drive out of the computer and install it as a slave drive in
another Windows XP or 2000 computer. It should read the drive ok, so you can
copy the data.

2. Create a bootable Bart's PE disk, boot from that, then copy the data to
external USB drive or flash drive.

3. Download a bootable Linux distro called Knoppix. Create a bootable CD
from that, boot from it, and copy the data to USB drive or flash drive, or
if the computer has two CD drives, one of which is a burner, then use the
k3b burning program on the Knoppix CD to burn the data to CD.

4. Take it to a competent computer tech to backup the data.

If the data is backed up, or after you back it up through one of the above
steps, then since a repair install didn't help, do a clean install of the OS
and apps, then restore the data from a backup.

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Another question you need to ask yourself is why are you allowing the system
to be infected in the first place?

http://www.cert.org/tech_tips/before_you_plug_in.html#III

http://www.claymania.com/safe-hex.html

Malware Removal
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

THE PARASITE FIGHT
Finding, Removing & Protecting Yourself From Scumware
http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

Richard Harper’s Guide to Cleaning Pests
http://rgharper.mvps.org/cleanit.htm