Upgrading over a corrupt OS

Weston · 19 Dec 2015

My Windows 7 four year old Qosmio laptop never recovered from a Trojan attack a month ago. Although the virus was removed with the help of an online malware removal thread, the User folder had been tampered with, and certain applications were opening only sometimes.

An in-store technician created a new User Profile for me, but the boot problem persists. First boot in the morning is usually successful. During the day, one way or another, the laptop will need to restart, and then the boot process freezes at one of two spots. In Safe Mode, either applications won't open but connection works, or applications open but connection isn't working. On rare occasions, a boot will succeed. Three distinct boot processes.

After a month of trying to avoid the high cost of in-store repair, I am having a clean install of Windows done by a technician.

1. I do not have a Windows 7 disk.
2. I removed as much of the Windows 10 prep material loaded on my laptop as I could, so the Windows 10 prep folder is not intact.
3. If circumstances were normal, I would choose 7 over 10.

Questions:
1. Is a free upgrade to Windows 10 possible, given that I removed some prep files and given that the Windows 7 OS is not working right?
2. If it's possible, will it remove what is causing the Windows 7 problem and be free of related problems?

Thanks.

bigmck · 19 Dec 2015

First, if you need to do a Clean Install again, don't pay someone. We can guide you through it here. == Just my personal opinion, I would try to get Win 7 going before installing Win 10. That may not cure your problem and you may not like Win 10. A Win 10 free upgrade is available if you have Win 7 now even if you have removed Win 10 files. == Since you are paying someone to install Win 7, get a Win 7 disk from him. I assume you have a Product Key that came with your PC. Be sure the Tech has activated the install with your Product Key. Let us know how things are progressing.

Weston · 19 Dec 2015

No response. Is what I'm asking about illegal? Unethical?

Weston · 19 Dec 2015

Thank you. Our posts seem to have crossed. This morning, in preparation for a clean install, I copied and pasted my documents, pictures, and the user folder onto a new USB. Midway through the pasting of the user folder, I received warnings from Microsoft security essentials (TrojanDownloader, which was also removed a few days ago). Yet, scans by MSE and Avira are normal. My paid version of Malwarebytes is turned off, possibly a conflict with MSE.

bigmck · 19 Dec 2015

Weston said:

Thank you. Our posts seem to have crossed. This morning, in preparation for a clean install, I copied and pasted my documents, pictures, and the user folder onto a new USB. Midway through the pasting of the user folder, I received warnings from Microsoft security essentials (TrojanDownloader, which was also removed a few days ago). Yet, scans by MSE and Avira are normal. My paid version of Malwarebytes is turned off, possibly a conflict with MSE.

MSE and Malwarebytes can and should be run together. Those two are about your best combo for fighting the ills of PC land. == I am a bit confused now, I thought you had a Tech guy do a Clean Install for you. Did he give you a Win 7 Disk?

Weston · 19 Dec 2015

No, he created a new User Profile; I have a new User Name. I would attribute the boot problem to a confusion of paths, but the problems were there before the Name was changed.

When I look in Properties for folders and files, I still see the original name. I had renamed the original with "-old" but that never appears anywhere.

I am watching an Avira scan, and I see from the 3447 warnings that when the new user folder was created, the windows 10 prep folder ($windows bt) was downloaded again.

bigmck · 19 Dec 2015

Weston said:

My Windows 7 four year old Qosmio laptop never recovered from a Trojan attack a month ago. Although the virus was removed with the help of an online malware removal thread, the User folder had been tampered with, and certain applications were opening only sometimes.

An in-store technician created a new User Profile for me, but the boot problem persists. First boot in the morning is usually successful. During the day, one way or another, the laptop will need to restart, and then the boot process freezes at one of two spots. In Safe Mode, either applications won't open but connection works, or applications open but connection isn't working. On rare occasions, a boot will succeed. Three distinct boot processes.

When you say "It needs to restart", what do you mean. Does it just reboot on its own or do you do a reboot yourself? If you do a reboot yourself, what reason makes you think it needs a reboot?

bigmck · 19 Dec 2015

One more thing to try. Use this tutorial to create a System Repair Disc. System Repair Disc - Create Use it to hopefully repair some files. Let us know how it goes.

AddRAM · 19 Dec 2015

Just because you get a popup from MBAM or MSE does not necessarily mean you have a Trojan or Malware or anything, there are always false positives, you downloaded whatever the issue is, so you should know exactly what caused the issue :)

Do your own clean install with our help of course :)

Clean Install Windows 7

Run the clean command using Diskpart to wipe out everything on the drive first, then install windows .

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Weston · 20 Dec 2015

If I leave the laptop unattended for about 20 minutes or more, when I return, the screen will be black, frozen, and unresponsive, the power light still on. Coincidentally, after I typed the word "unattended" above, Windows broke in to Configure. I went into the kitchen, poured a cup of coffee, and returned -- no more than 5 minutes. The configuration had apparently finished and a reboot had reached the Windows Welcome screen and frozen. I shut down.

When I started again, the abnormally closed screen appeared. I chose Open Normally. The boot got as far as my desktop with all icons present; then the screen (cursor and hourglass) froze, requiring me to shut down and Start again. I chose Open Normally again, and the boot was successful. Remarkable, because a normal boot usually only happens first try in the morning or after several unsuccessful or safemode efforts.

My User Folder and Boot problems started with:
1. Please update to the latest . . . //www.downmcflplayer.com/Update/...
2. Setup.exe //admin.magnoapp.com/zdK9.....
3. Rinoreader
4. Trojan:Win32/Patched.AO DNS.dll is missing.

I don't appear to have a virus at this time. But I'm getting frequent error messages (e.g., plug-in has stopped; WordPerfect has stopped working; etc, in addition to the Boot problem.