Windows won't start - No solution in sight

Hello

I got a virus or malware the other day. Internet tabs just kept opening indifinetly, and then my computer restarted. On restart, it couldn't load and it did the startup recovery but failed. No useful errors. Just said it could not fix the problem.

I tried system restore, which says it completed successfully (even though i thought it had to restart before saying this), but when it restarts it has the same issue.

I tried booting off the windows cd but the repair doesn't work, and when i hit install, it tries to find drivers for the cd drive even though it is already reading the cd......

The command line seems useless. It says X:\system so I can't even browse to another directory. I tried sfs /scannow but it says something about a restore operation not being complete and a restart being required. After restarting, scannow says the same thing.

I'm not sure what to do now. Is there a good virus removal tool that I can boot off of and clean my drive?

Thanks!

First thing is to clean the virus.

Use a bootable a/v cd , here is one:

Avira AntiVir Rescue System - Download

Then if you can't boot into windows, run startup repair - up to 3 separate runs may be required.

If you can't boot after that - then we can try some commands .

( Don't worry about command prompt starting in X: it is supposed to do that )

Shadowjk said:

Code:

cd c:\windows

etc

cd does not work. No directories can be found. I don't think the computer is at a point where the drives can be accessed yet. And i said X:\system before but i meant X:\sources.

SIW2 said:

First thing is to clean the virus.

Use a bootable a/v cd , here is one:

Avira AntiVir Rescue System - Download

Then if you can't boot into windows, run startup repair - up to 3 separate runs may be required.

I will try this and let you know what happens.

Good luck - keep us posted.

I didn't get the chance to try the avira rescue cd. I burned it, but before I used it, I pulled the hard drive from my computer and put it in my other computer as a slave drive. I then used Microsoft Security Essentials and scanned the drive. It partially removed one virus (whatever that means). I put the drive back in the original computer and it still didn't start up. I put my Windows 7 pro disc in, selected to boot from cd, and windows started right up and finished the system restore it had in progress. All is good now.

Thanks for everyone's help.