Black screen at start up, can't access drives

pantabulosin said:

baarod said:

That's telling you that the administrators group does not exist! Perhaps it's been renamed by whatever terrible software has caused all this damage. You can list the groups with this command and try to determine which as the administrators group:

net localgroup

Ok, I wrote that command and I got (roughly translated)

Alias for\\myname-VAIO

___________________________....

*Administrators
*HomeUsers
*IIS_IUSRS
*Guests
*Event Registry Readers
*Users
*distributed COM Users
*System monitor users
*Performance registry users
The command has been completed correctly

I want to stress how thankfull I am for your help, as I was very unlikely to come up with any of this stuff on my own, and even if it turns out that I need to wipe my C drive to reinstall windows from scratch at least I'll have a bunch of tools for next time (though I hope there'll be no next time).

Try

net localgroup administrators hola /add

again with "administrators" typed exactly as the first item in the list above without the asterisk *

That should work. If that works and Windows still fails to log this new administrator into the system then we can try two more things before I suggest you do a repair installation:

1) check integrity of system files:

sfc /scannow

2) re-register OLE classes

for %a in (c:\Windows\System32\*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"

[QUOTE=baarod;1311746]

pantabulosin said:

Try

net localgroup administrators hola /add

again with "administrators" typed exactly as the first item in the list above without the asterisk *

That should work. If that works and Windows still fails to log this new administrator into the system then we can try two more things before I suggest you do a repair installation:

1) check integrity of system files:

sfc /scannow

2) re-register OLE classes

for %a in (c:\Windows\System32\*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"

I actually edited my previous post saying that I entered the command into the console and it worked (I just had to use the spanish word for administrators), the new user is in basically the same initial situation as my administrator account, excetp the screen is not black.

I ran the sfc /scannow command and I the command line says "Windows did not find any security infraction" but at the same time I got an error message saying:

Runtime Error!

Program C:\Windows \system32\sfc.exe

R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

I think it's worth noting that the Windows folder has an extra space in it, but I'm no expert on the matter.

I guess that leaves re-registering OLE classes. I guess I'll have to make a list of my dlls and run the command for all of them, right?

[QUOTE=pantabulosin;1311754]

baarod said:

pantabulosin said:

Try

net localgroup administrators hola /add

again with "administrators" typed exactly as the first item in the list above without the asterisk *

That should work. If that works and Windows still fails to log this new administrator into the system then we can try two more things before I suggest you do a repair installation:

1) check integrity of system files:

sfc /scannow

2) re-register OLE classes

for %a in (c:\Windows\System32\*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"

I actually edited my previous post saying that I entered the command into the console and it worked (I just had to use the spanish word for administrators), the new user is in basically the same initial situation as my administrator account, excetp the screen is not black.

I ran the sfc /scannow command and I the command line says "Windows did not find any security infraction" but at the same time I got an error message saying:

Runtime Error!

Program C:\Windows \system32\sfc.exe

R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.

I think it's worth noting that the Windows folder has an extra space in it, but I'm no expert on the matter.

I guess that leaves re-registering OLE classes. I guess I'll have to make a list of my dlls and run the command for all of them, right?

No. That command makes the list and executes regsvr32 for each. Are you using 32 or 64 bit Windows?

pantabulosin said:

baarod said:

No. That command makes the list and executes regsvr32 for each. Are you using 32 or 64 bit Windows?

It's 64 bit. I just didn't know how the command worked.

In that case, you'll want to re-register your 64-bit DLLs too:

for %a in (C:\Windows\SysWOW64\*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"

Don't worry. You'll get through this without wiping your drive and losing your files. Any idea what was installed that caused this?

pantabulosin said:

baarod said:

In that case, you'll want to re-register your 64-bit DLLs too:

for %a in (C:\Windows\SysWOW64\*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"

Don't worry. You'll get through this without wiping your drive and losing your files. Any idea what was installed that caused this?

I don't know exactly what could have caused it, as the las three programs I installed are Internet Explorer 9, Steam and a piece of software I use for my graduate classes called KENPAVE. At first I thought my problems booting were the result of an update in ubuntu or just me being dumb and changing a filename by mistake. But the most likely culprit is probably meclicking on the wrong link or opening a dummy file by mistake.

Hmm. Civil Engineer. Well done. How are the re-registrations going?

pantabulosin said:

baarod said:

Hmm. Civil Engineer. Well done. How are the re-registrations going?

I typed them in as they are written in here, the first time i tried it for the 64 bit ones the computer asked "more?" and I couldn't get past that. I typed them again and nothing happened in the command line. I restarted the machine and I'm basically in the same situation.

I tried adding a space in windows (think "windows_") and the output looked like /s C:"Windows" so I', about to restart again and see what happens.

cd into the C:\Windows\system32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64 folders respectively and execute this. Looks like whatever malware you have has renamed the Windows folder.

for %a in (*.dll) do regsvr32.exe /s "%a"