xp format and install problem (not sure if this the right forum or not)

[Defiant]

Hi all, I have a friends laptop a Toshiba satellite series that has a
problem. I got his computer because he had a virus and he asked me to try
and get rid of it. well I booted it up and it was worse than I thought it
had according to AVG free 123 virus's and spybot reported 256 spyware
intrusions. the computer kept losing things like search didn't work,control
panel, was not really there only some of the icons worked others didn't long
list of problems.
anyway I reformatted the hard drive and attempted to reinstall windows. I
did a clean format inside the win installer from the cd. everything went
well until I rebooted. it went to the cd install screen again and it wanted
to format and install all over again did this several times. always going
back to trying to install winxp.
I used the repair console to do a fixmbr and a fixboot same thing nothing
seems to work after the reboot I took the cd out and it just reboots over
and over again or it has a message that there is a disk error.
I read on another forum about using fdisk so got my old win98 cd out and did
a fdisk worked great till I rebooted then again nothing same thing either
reboot after reboot Or a disk error.
I suspect a boot virus has infected the core boot sector.
how do I get rid of this dam virus, or clean this drive to work again.
any help would be appreciated, thanks Charles

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hi all, I have a friends laptop a Toshiba satellite series that has a
problem. I got his computer because he had a virus and he asked me to try
and get rid of it. well I booted it up and it was worse than I thought it
had according to AVG free 123 virus's and spybot reported 256 spyware
intrusions. the computer kept losing things like search didn't
work,control panel, was not really there only some of the icons worked
others didn't long list of problems.
anyway I reformatted the hard drive and attempted to reinstall windows. I
did a clean format inside the win installer from the cd. everything went
well until I rebooted. it went to the cd install screen again and it
wanted to format and install all over again did this several times. always
going back to trying to install winxp.
I used the repair console to do a fixmbr and a fixboot same thing nothing
seems to work after the reboot I took the cd out and it just reboots over
and over again or it has a message that there is a disk error.
I read on another forum about using fdisk so got my old win98 cd out and
did a fdisk worked great till I rebooted then again nothing same thing
either reboot after reboot Or a disk error.
I suspect a boot virus has infected the core boot sector.
how do I get rid of this dam virus, or clean this drive to work again.
any help would be appreciated, thanks Charles

If there's an actual disk error, replace the drive. They aren't very
expensive these days.

You can try deleting the partitions and recreating them before the format.

Have you taken the CD out of the drive? If you do, does it still restart
into Setup?

HTH
-pk

 

[Andrew E.]

Youre post is'nt quite how xp gets installed...First set for the cdrom with
xp cd in it as 1st boot device in BIOS,hd 2nd,once youre at xp cd boot menu,
select install xp,new copy,delete the partition(s),create one,then let xp
format
& install auto.Once it formats,user action is a way down the road,actually
the
next user action would be when it asks for product key numbers...Touching
any key before that will only cause problems...

 

[Defiant]

ok here's what it's doing, I put the cd in the drive and start the computer
it boots to the windows xp cd and starts the installation. it runs all the
setup asks me if I want to use the recovery console or install xp or quit. I
tell it to install xp and it goes to the format the hard drive quick or
normal (I've done both) and then it begins formatting the hard drive and
installing files at the last point it says reboot in 10 seconds I let it do
that (so it can complete the installation) but when it reboots it does right
back to the installing windows xp from the cd and begins the xp cd
installation program.
if I take the cd out it either reboots over and over or it gives a disk
error. the hard disk worked before but had many virus's and spyware on it
so a wipe was the only hope of it doing anything.
I booted it to a command prompt using my win98 cd there is nothing on the
hard drive at all that I can find.
hope this clears things up. Thanks again,
Charles

 

[Defiant]

I got it I used a program that I got from another post in this group called
zapit.exe and it did it machine is up and running fine thanks anyway.
Charles