Cannot Find Windows 7 Product Key

VMPAS said:

ok I have an update.

I have managed to get Windows 7 to reinstall however someway, somehow it contracted Alureon without Windows even being an hour installed on the system. In ran MSE and Windows Defender Offline and managed to remove the infection.

New problem. Windows crashes upon boot. I get to the Windows splash scree and it BSOD's. The only technical information is provides is the Stop Code: 0x0000007B which I know from experience with Dells can be an issue with the Sata Operation in the BIOS. I go to the bios and switch from AHCI to ATA. Same thing happens. Switch it back. Happens again. I'm starting to believe that the software on the hard drive may be very much so currupt. I am right now running the Dell Diagnostics to make sure it isn't hardware related someway somehow.

Any other input would greatly be appreciated as I am starting to reach the end of my long list of ideas.


EDIT: Also just for the future if I were to wipe the hard drive totally clean and reinstall Windows using an ISO image and input the product key that came with the laptop would it work?

Set SATA back to what it was in bios so I think AHCI. Alureon modifies atapi.sys and that's why it bsod'ed to stop 7B!
Replace atapi.sys in c:\windows\system32 with a good atapi.sys! Copy it from a working 64bits win7 machine and transfer using usb stick. Copy using win7 recovery environment. It hasn't changed since 2009!

VMPAS said:

Kaktussoft said:

VMPAS said:

ok I have an update.

I have managed to get Windows 7 to reinstall however someway, somehow it contracted Alureon without Windows even being an hour installed on the system. In ran MSE and Windows Defender Offline and managed to remove the infection.

New problem. Windows crashes upon boot. I get to the Windows splash scree and it BSOD's. The only technical information is provides is the Stop Code: 0x0000007B which I know from experience with Dells can be an issue with the Sata Operation in the BIOS. I go to the bios and switch from AHCI to ATA. Same thing happens. Switch it back. Happens again. I'm starting to believe that the software on the hard drive may be very much so currupt. I am right now running the Dell Diagnostics to make sure it isn't hardware related someway somehow.

Any other input would greatly be appreciated as I am starting to reach the end of my long list of ideas.


EDIT: Also just for the future if I were to wipe the hard drive totally clean and reinstall Windows using an ISO image and input the product key that came with the laptop would it work?

Set SATA back to what it was in bios so I think AHCI. Alureon modifies atapi.sys and that's why it bsod'ed to stop 7B!
Replace atapi.sys in c:\windows\system32 with a good atapi.sys! Copy it from a working 64bits win7 machine and transfer using usb stick. Copy using win7 recovery environment. It hasn't changed since 2009!

I see. Alright I'll do that. But how or why would this trojan pop up when the new image isn't even an hour old?

Maybe it was already on disk(?) You did clean whole disk? Or did you just delete all partitions?

VMPAS said:

I went through the recovery GUI and restored to factory settings. Not sure if thats a clean or a formatting....wouldn't it be the same?

The virus is a rootkit and is located in MBR (the first sector of physical disk). It is active even before windows or recovery stuff starts! Even if recovery stuff tries to override that piece of code, the virus can block it and return a "fake overrride success"

VMPAS said:

Kaktussoft said:

VMPAS said:

I went through the recovery GUI and restored to factory settings. Not sure if thats a clean or a formatting....wouldn't it be the same?

The virus is a rootkit and is located in MBR (the first sector of physical disk). It is active even before windows or recovery stuff starts! Even if recovery stuff tries to override that piece of code, the virus can block it and return a "fake overrride success"

Ah I see. Makes sense so really I would have to wipe the entire drive. Is there a usb tool I can use to do this because tbh I don't feel very comfortable attaching the HDD to my lap top and formatting the drive through Disk Management and such.

And even afterword how would I reinstall Windows 7 without a recovery interface? I mean I have an ISO for Win 7 but will it work with the product key that I have? If I can even get it at this point since I cannot get into Windows and such...

You have a COA sticker with a product key on laptop?