Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
I'm certain I've just downloaded a virus. I was working on something else and I think I downloaded a corrupted file - the installation of which I didn't pay attention to until my computer started shutting down.
On reboot I'm now faced with
STOP: c000021a
0xc0000005 etc. brackets are all zeros.
The biggest problem is, this isn't my computer and I need it back online asap. If anyone can help me get it going again it would be much appreciated. If I could pay you guys - I would!
G.
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Does it boot into safe mode? XP or Vista?
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Try pressing f8 during startup before the winlogo comes up, and choose "last configuration that worked" I am sure this is an XP SP2 error only, I may be wrong though.
if not it could be a currupt win32K.sys file (WINDOWS\system32\win32k.sys)
I am sure we can work this out so don't worry. :)
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
I can get to the safe mode selection screen but it wont boot up in safe mode. I also tried the last config option and that didn't work either. Thanks for your help, by the way.
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
does it tell you what file is causing the error? Do you have your XP disk?
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Boot from the XP CD and repair using that.
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
As far as I can tell it doesn't mention any files, unless I'm looking in the wrong place (ie. the blue screen.) I have just found the XP disc which is a dell reinstallation CD.
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Just insert it in the drive and then start up the laptop? or do I have to go through a menu? - First time I've ever booted from a CD.
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Okay, I've managed to start the repair option, however, it asks for an Admin password and I don't think there is one. None of the users, even those with Admin rights, have any passwords.
Could there be one I'm unaware of, or is there a way to bypass this requirement?
The first time I just hit enter and it gave me a C windows prompt.
EDIT - Apparently I managed to get into recovery commands with that prompt. I'm really not sure how to use it to fix my problem though. Could someone help?
Do I need to fixboot or fixmbr? Or something else?
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Continue with what you are currently doing, however also consider that it might be a hardware issue (usualy something to do with the PSU, RAM or motherboard. You can test this out by removing extra / un-needed stuff like sound cards, all but 1 RAM stick etc and rebooting).
If it's giving a C prompt, type HELP [Return] to get a list of options. There are a few to try first, like (from memory) CHKDSK, before you go plodding off down options such as FIXMBR (or whatever it's called).
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Thanks.
I'm 99.9% sure it's a virus. Because I watched it happen! Very clever of me, I know, but it didn't twig until it was too late.
So, I just progress down the options?
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
When you have booted from a Windows Installation CD and are in repair mode, it doesn't literally have a list that you progress through. I wish it did!
However HELP will give you the list of commands that you have available.
I've been doing a quick google search for a useful page detailing what the major commands do...
This post on TechRepublic looks ok:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-111...hreadID=188890
Quote:
CHKDSK /P fixes 95% of all Windows XP boot problems in my experience. It is run from the Recovery Console as described in some of the other steps. Run CHKDSK /P first, then reboot and hope for Windows. If it blue screens again, go back into the Recovery Console and try the "in place upgrade" as described. If you find there is no OS found to "upgrade", reboot, back into the recovery console, and then run BOOTCFG /ADD or /REBUILD, and name the XP install if found. If BOOTCFG /REBUILD wont finish, slave the hard drive in another system and run a full disk check from within Windows.
Wikipedia's CHKDSK entry
Edit: And this page might be a useful read too
Edit 2: I'm REALLY STOOPID. What i should i said from the start is that the very best thing to do, before you go off writing new boot sectors or anything weird like that, is to boot into Ubuntu, Knoppix or similar using a LiveCD, and make sure that you copy all important data off first before you lose anything.
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Can't help with your actual problem more than others have, but if the Administrator is the XP standard one, usually only seen in safe mode. The password will be Administrator(may not be capitalised, I don't remember).
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Re: Immediate Assistance Please! Blue Screen Emergency!
Chkdsk /r hasn't worked.
Can I back up a laptop HD? Never removed one.