Hi natron,

I noticed you tried going into safe mode...Did you also try starting in 'Last Known Good'..?

How to start your computer by using the Last Known Good Configuration feature in Windows XP


Post back let us know..!

Thought I mentionned that there's no loading any of those settings.. It restarts after selecting any sort of mode...

Woot! It's back on!!

I managed to get it to repair.. when it came to that dos screen.. I typed in.. chkdsk c: /r it took a good half hour to an hour or so, ran through, finished and said it repaired one or more things.. then I exited, and restarted.. It went to the same menu to start on safe mode/last known good.. etc.. picked last known good.. It kept going!! Now, I want to make sure this doesn't happen again? Did this repair fully repair any issues the registry had or the computer had? Anyhting I should do to ensure all's good? I'm going to run a new hijack log and post it back into that forum where I originally posted but want to make sure it's going to keep working right.

Anyway, thanks John

Actually, a chkdsk /r fixed actualy physical errors it found in the data on your HD - that could have be anything at all. It could have simply fixed errors in the FAT table itself so that Windows could find the registry again....

The only real way to prevent these kinds of things from happening is to not use the computer at all. Seriously. I don't mean to sound facetious, but that is, honestly, the truth. Every time you turn on the computer you risk it getting corrupted in some form or fashion - electronics are like that.

The best thing you can do to recover from such an error is to have backups made - the easiest ones are backing up entire HDs to antoher physical HD in the system - then, if you Hose hte original, or sometrhing like this happens, you restore the backup and presto, you're ready to go.

The second easiest thing you can do is to make your user the only administrative user and every one else who uses the machine just a regular user (meaning they can't do things like editing the registry, installing programs, etc) so that you have the most control over the machine.

At any rate, since this was a data corruption issue, it is just as easy to think that your other half had nothing to do with it as it is to think that he did - HD corruption can occurr at any time, so no finger pointing by me. I am just glad you are back.

I would go through smoe of the procedures again, starting with the Malware procedure earlier in this post, and then start reading up on making backups to keep (if nothnig else) all your data safe and secure - after all, an OS is good to reinstlal every now and again, but losing all those pictures, documetns, and various sundry keepsakes can be disheartening.

Besides, after all the probblems that you ahve ebncountered, I'd be thinking very hard about formatting and starting from scratch - it is rare that all your problems go away and never manifest again....

Thanks John. I've given the computer back to my uncle with some direction.. Basically, don't download what you don't know about and to not let anyone else download crapware. Although, I can't control him so if this happens again.. well, nothing I can do about it. But regardless, thanks again for all the help. I'm going to be heading over again next week to have a look at the comp, have the hijack log going again so will see what they say regarding it and work through the malware removal tool.