tnaseemom said:
My granddaughters computer had a virus. When we got rid of it and
restarted,... the little box pops up and tells me that windows explorer has
stopped working. Nothing I do changes it....It even does it in safe mode....I
have looked for an answer to the problem but cant find one.It pretty much
wont let you do anything. Can anyone out there help me ?....On yes it is
windows vista.....Thanks
Without knowing what the virus was and what you did to "get rid of it",
it's impossible to know the state of your granddaughter's computer. Some
general suggestions for troubleshooting:
1. Look at these virus/malware removal steps to see if you did something
similar. If you didn't scan this thoroughly, I suggest you go through
the steps systematically.
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware
Include scanning with David Lipman's Multi_AV and follow instructions to
do all scans in Safe Mode. Please see the special Notes regarding using
Multi_AV in Vista.
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Multi-AV - instructions
http://pcdid.com/Multi_AV.htm - download
If you are unable to perform those steps, remove the hard drive and
slave it in another machine. You can run virus/malware scans on the
drive that way.
2. If the machine is really clean but Windows is still too damaged to
run, you can do the Vista equivalent of a repair install.
Repair Vista -
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/windows_vista_repair_options.htm
Repair A Vista Installation Using The Upgrade Option Of The Vista DVD -
http://tinyurl.com/3b7yrj
Repair Windows Vista using Startup Repair -
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial148.html
3. If the repair install doesn't work, you will need to do a clean
install of Windows. Understand that everything on the machine will be
gone after a clean install so if your granddaughter has important data
on the machine, it can be retrieved as follows:
a. Pull the drive and slave it in a computer running a working install
of XP. Depending on the target drive's characteristics, you may need a
drive adapter; i.e., laptop-to-IDE or a SATA controller card, etc. A
usb/firewire external drive enclosure works very well, too. Use the
working Windows Explorer to copy the data to the rescue system's hard
drive and then burn the data to cd or dvd.
b. Often XP will not boot with a slaved drive that has a damaged file
system. In that case, boot the target computer with either a Bart's PE
or a Linux live cd such as Knoppix and retrieve the data that way. Here
is general information on using Knoppix for this:
You will need a computer with two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw
OR a usb thumb drive with enough capacity to hold your data OR an
external usb/firewire hard drive formatted FAT32 (not NTFS). To get
Knoppix, you need a computer with a fast Internet connection and
third-party burning software. Download the Knoppix .iso and create your
bootable cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows
files. If you are using the usb thumb drive or the external hard drive,
right-click on its icon (on the Desktop) to get its properties and
uncheck the box that says "Read Only". Then click on it to open it. Note
that the default mouse action in the window manager used by Knoppix
(KDE) is a single click to open instead of the traditional MS Windows'
double-click. Otherwise, use the K3b burning program to burn the files
to cd/dvd-r's.
http://www.knoppix.net
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ - Bart's PE Builder
Standard caveat: If the procedures look too complex - and there is no
shame in admitting this isn't your cup of tea - take the machine to a
professional computer repair shop (not your local version of
BigComputerStore/GeekSquad).
Malke
