Will Upgrade to XP help?

[Doug]

Hi,

I'll try to keep this reasonably short Anyway, I have a friends computer
which needs some TLC. I was told it had a virus and eventually wouldn't
boot. So I checked it out today and started it up. Even though it seemed
the computer was hung, I just let it go since it looked like there was some
hard drive activity. 20 minutes later is was up and running, albeit very
badly. Every keystroke I did took minutes for it actually initiated
anything. I managed to get the old outdated Norton anti virus uninstalled
with the hopes of putting on AVG and doing a full system scan. Didn't
happen.

After rebooting to finish the uninstall of Norton, the computer won't boot
at all. I didn't manage to get it to boot in safe mode once, but couldn't
load the AVG software because the CD ROM drive wasn't recognized in Windows
Explorer. Put in a boot floppy and tried that way, but AVG must be
installed using Windows.

Now, this computer is Dell 8100 currently running ( and I use that term
loosely here) Windows ME. I own a legitimate copy of XP Home that I got
from Dell for a different machine, that I don't plan on using. Is it
possible to do a clean install using the XP disk, using the option to format
C, and NTFS, and expect that any boot virus or whatever would also be gone?
Formatting C would do this, yes? Or am I all wet here?

Right now this computer will get up to the little meter when starting with
the Dell logo, then hang. I can hear the hard drive "clicking" like it's
trying to do something. I suppose the hard drive could be shot too, I don't
know. Almost seems that way.

One last question... If I were to take the hard drive out and plug it into
a different machine to run some anti virus software on it, is there anything
special I have to do other than just switch jumpers to slave? Will the
machine I'd be plugging this into just boot from C: as normal. and then show
me the drive I'm trying to check in Windows Explorer?

What would be the preferred method here? Should I F-Disk this thing first
or is that just a waste of time if I install XP? Any help at all would be
greatly appreciated! Thanks!

~ Doug

 

[Vagabond Software]

Now, this computer is Dell 8100 currently running ( and I use that term
loosely here) Windows ME. I own a legitimate copy of XP Home that I got
from Dell for a different machine, that I don't plan on using. Is it
possible to do a clean install using the XP disk, using the option to format
C, and NTFS, and expect that any boot virus or whatever would also be gone?
Formatting C would do this, yes? Or am I all wet here?

Yep, that would do it.

One last question... If I were to take the hard drive out and plug it into
a different machine to run some anti virus software on it, is there anything
special I have to do other than just switch jumpers to slave? Will the
machine I'd be plugging this into just boot from C: as normal. and then show
me the drive I'm trying to check in Windows Explorer?

Yep, that's exactly the way it works.

What would be the preferred method here? Should I F-Disk this thing first
or is that just a waste of time if I install XP? Any help at all would be
greatly appreciated! Thanks!

Just let XP do its thing. Make sure you're not creating a partition. Let
the XP installation CD format the entire drive space as NTFS.

- carl

 

[Plato]

possible to do a clean install using the XP disk, using the option to format
C, and NTFS, and expect that any boot virus or whatever would also be gone?
Formatting C would do this, yes? Or am I all wet here?

Formatting doesn't touch or erase a boot sector virus.

 

[Vagabond Software]

Formatting doesn't touch or erase a boot sector virus.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the XP installation CD nukes his current
FAT32 partition and re-partitions the disk and lays down an NTFS format,
won't that nail the boot sector?

- carl

 

[Steve Nielsen]

Yep, that would do it.

Formating the disk does not touch the MBR, which is where boot sector
viruses infect, niether would using fdisk to delete and re-create
partitions. Fdisk /mbr (DOS) or fixmbr (Recovery Console if you do go
XP) would though.

Steve

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

You cannot do this under the conditions you've specified.

Based upon the description you've provided, you have a Dell OEM
license for WinXP Home. An OEM version must be sold with a piece of
hardware (normally a motherboard or hard rive, if not an entire PC, as
yours was) and is _permanently_ bound to the first PC on which it's
installed. An OEM license, once installed, is not legally
transferable to another computer under _any_ circumstances. You can
remove or replace it, if you like, but you cannot ever reuse it on a
different computer. This is the main reason some people avoid OEM
versions; if the PC dies or is otherwise disposed of (even stolen),
you cannot re-use your OEM license on a new PC. The only legitimate
way to transfer the ownership of an installed OEM license is to
transfer ownership of the entire PC.

However, your technique might work to solve your friends problems,
were he to purt5cshse a legitimate retail license of WinXP of his own.

Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:




You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH

 

[Brian Coats]

Actual you can do it with a oem version. However, he said he has a
legal version of xp home. So it must be a retail version that he
bought separately from dell.


Try this first.
Boot in safe press F8.
Search the registry for nortons.
Delete either the key or the value. Not sure just delete the value.

Also,
While you are in safe mode.
Check win.ini file.
If it is just one line. Their should be back ups of it. Just delete
the win.ini and rename the correct one to win.ini

 

[Plato]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when the XP installation CD nukes his current
FAT32 partition and re-partitions the disk and lays down an NTFS format,
won't that nail the boot sector?

For the home user, yes. New partitions DONT erase any data tho. They
just tell the PC that the drive is clean and now it can write to _any_
allocation unit, thus overwriting existing data on the drive. The files
are still there. To erase all data on a hard drive, you have to zero it
out.