Solved Windows 7 Professional 64-BIT Logs in, but almost frozen.

[loanstar744]

Alright, I'm a PC technician and I've never had a problem like this before to where I have found no way to solve it. Also, my PC is dual booted with XP and Windows 7 in case of this kind of situation and Windows XP still works fine so it's not a Hardware error.

Okay, so yesterday I was updating my blog and going through my pictures, and I left my PC for about an hour because I noticed my PC was being slow due to an update for Windows Media Center, well, when I came back, it was being a bit slow and my network had cutout as we've been having network outages, and when I clicked on the Explorer window for Pictures, it all started freezing, so with not even HDD activity, I had to hard reset it, so I brought it back up and it said it updated successfully and had to install another update so I restarted it again so it could finish as it told me to restart, and when it came back up and I logged into Windows 7, it took forever to get to the desktop and when it finally did, the taskbar was completely frozen, so I left it all night and when I came back to it this morning, it said in the bottom right corner "This Copy of Windows 7 is not Genuine" but I assure you, it's genuine, I still have my receipt as I bought it through Microsoft's College website and burned to a DVD.

Now, I restarted it and brought Windows 7 up in repair mode and ran Startup Repair but it found nothing, looked at System Restore but it found no restore points, but I know I had a few restores, but they were gone, no where to be found, so I also tried Image recovery as I also saved an image, but it said my saved image was gone as well, which is possible because I did restore Windows 7 at one point due to a bad Registry clean and so it may have restored to a time before the image was created, but alas, I even brought up CMD and did chkdsk, but it failed with: "Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50." so even chkdsk won't work, and I dread reinstalling Windows 7 as it took almost a full day the first time I installed it.

As for now I'm using my old laptop so I can diagnose my computer and still be online, but I also do all my gaming on my desktop and even my instant messaging as I have WLM setup to my very likings and would be insanely hard to replicate, I've also started Windows 7 at it's last known good configuration and it still would not boot right.

You're all going to laugh now, but here are my Desktop's specs:

CPU: AMD Sempron @ 1.8GHz with 3DNOW MMX

RAM: DDR3 @ 1.5GB

GPU: ATi Radeon HD5570 DDR3 @ 1GB

HDD's: 160GB Seagate Barricuda and 160GB Western Digital Caviar Blue both at 7500RPM

Please, this has been driving me crazy not being able to figure it out, and the weird thing is that it acts like it's a virus, but I'm fairly certain it isn't as I scan my PC daily with Avast and IObit Malware Defender along with Advanced System Care and have never had a problem until now.

Memory Scan showed nothing, booted back up into Safe Mode, just regular old Safe Mode, CTRL+ALT+DEL right when it comes up, start new task through run, type MSCONFIG to try a clean boot and it hangs opening MSCONFIG, still trying to fix the problem and Google has nothing for me, even after hours of searching and hundreds of different search terms. I'm completely stumped, but I won't give up.

Did a clean boot, and still having problems, also used Black Screen fix while barely in Safe Mode, on another note, it doesn't start acting up until RIGHT after I log in, and it takes about 10 minutes for the welcome loading screen to go away.

I can't tell you guys just how ticked off I am, and not to mention virtually no one has had this problem.

Thanks for looking, and if you can think of anything, please, lay it right on me, I'm desperate.

 

[seth500]

Man it sounds like a virus to me or that there are many system errors that sfc /scannow isn't seeing but I would try a repair install in this tutorial:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

 

[essenbe]

If you can, download and run Malwarebytes If you can't download and burn to disk Microsoft safety scanner, boot from the disk and run the scan. You should be able to run scannow from the installation disk. At the firdt window, do not select your language. Hold the shift key and press F10 which will bring up a cmd console. Let us know what results you have from those, but I agree it sounds more like a virus.

 

[loanstar744]

Man it sounds like a virus to me or that there are many system errors that sfc /scannow isn't seeing but I would try a repair install in this tutorial:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Yeah, after figuring that it only affects me right after I Log In, I started to assume it was a Virus, will try to Repair Install after I run Malware and Virus scans through Windows XP, scanning my Windows 7 HDD in each scan as well, so far it's found a little bit, but I can't do the scans or Repair Install through Windows 7, as it's pretty much like I can't get into it, it's like trying to run Windows 7 on an Atari 2600. :U

If you can, download and run Malwarebytes If you can't download and burn to disk Microsoft safety scanner, boot from the disk and run the scan. You should be able to run scannow from the installation disk. At the firdt window, do not select your language. Hold the shift key and press F10 which will bring up a cmd console. Let us know what results you have from those, but I agree it sounds more like a virus.

So far I've ran the Microsoft Safety Scanner and it found three Malicious objects and killed two of them but couldn't get rid of: "VirTool:Win32/Obfuscator.C", so now I'm running Malwarebytes as I had it on my Emergency Flash Drive, and so far it's found 4 objects and probably soon to be more as I'm running a full scan.
Even though it's not fixed yet, I just wanted to reply so I didn't seem like a dick and to thank you guys for the help so far.

 

[essenbe]

when you finish the scan write down what it found. It usually creates a log. When it finishes, run it again. keep running it until it comes up clean. Viruses and Trojans are not like installing a program to a directory and it stays there. They are more like a cancer. It gets in and starts spreading out in many different locations. The problem is you can get rid of a virus, but you cannot undo the damage it has caused. Do you have XP on a separate disk and have any viruses been found on XP?

 

[gregrocker]

Right now it is about running the two scans you have until they come up clean, then repairing the System Files which are damaged from the DVD Repair console or Repair CD Command Prompt using SFC -SCANNOW Run in Command Prompt at Boot until it comes up clean.

There may be other issues requiring running Startup Repair from DVD/Repair CD repeatedly also.

Even then most serious compound infections require a clean reinstall of the the OS. Here are tips to get a perfect clean reinstall of Factory OEM (adapt them if you have retail) based on hundreds done here: Reinstalling Windows 7

I notice you refer to previous use of ruinous Registry cleaners. These will almost always ruin Win7 which will not tolerate any Registry cleaner/optimizer that I've seen other than CCleaner.

I wonder why you think your backup image would just disappear. Can you see it if you browse in using this method? Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

 

[loanstar744]

when you finish the scan write down what it found. It usually creates a log. When it finishes, run it again. keep running it until it comes up clean. Viruses and Trojans are not like installing a program to a directory and it stays there. They are more like a cancer. It gets in and starts spreading out in many different locations. The problem is you can get rid of a virus, but you cannot undo the damage it has caused. Do you have XP on a separate disk and have any viruses been found on XP?

Yes, I'll copy the log then paste it here, so far no Viruses or Malware have been found on my Windows XP HDD, but it did find a few tracking cookies in Chrome, nothing serious though, and so far my first scan is still going for roughly three hours and has scanned: "259,770" objects and has found 8 infected files, right now it's going through my Steam Games, that could take a very long time.
Ah yes, I do know this, when Trojan's were very popular back in oh I'd say 2003-2004, I used to repair many computers as a lot of people didn't think to have any Anti-Virus. Then having to replace damaged files, and in one case someones explorer.exe was infected so I replaced it with the same from my old laptop and it was good as new besides scanning it for another two days.. Worse two years of computer repair for me ever..

Right now it is about running the two scans you have until they come up clean, then repairing the System Files which are damaged from the DVD Repair console or Repair CD Command Prompt using SFC -SCANNOW Run in Command Prompt at Boot until it comes up clean.

There may be other issues requiring running Startup Repair from DVD/Repair CD repeatedly also.

Even then most serious compound infections require a clean reinstall of the the OS. Here are tips to get a perfect clean reinstall of Factory OEM (adapt them if you have retail) based on hundreds done here: Reinstalling Windows 7

I notice you refer to previous use of ruinous Registry cleaners. These will almost always ruin Win7 which will not tolerate any Registry cleaner/optimizer that I've seen other than CCleaner.

I wonder why you think your backup image would just disappear. Can you see it if you browse in using this method? Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

Well, the first scan I ran twice and it found three entries and only found the one it couldn't delete the second time, and the Malwarebytes scan is still running after three hours, but I'm happy to see it's found 8 infected files.
Ah yes, I used this one program, can't remember the name of it, very trusted and Russian made, did a good job, but it screwed with a few things badly, but I had happened to save a System Restore right before running the Registry Cleaner, though I agree, CCleaner, Advanced System Care and Glary Utilities all have great registry cleaners that have never given me a problem on Windows 7 before, specially Glary as it caught even more than ASC.
I searched my HDD, the image should have been on the root of my Win7 HDD but it was not and I would not have moved a file that large, I assume after this I should backup my computer every once in a while and keep the Restores on my External HDD so they won't go missing, though I Dual Booted my PC like this just in case one failed I could still repair it from the other OS, that and to use Windows XP only applications.

 

[essenbe]

When you run malwarebytes you can select which drive to scan. If it has found nothing except on windows 7 drive, you can select that drive only to expedite matters. It is usually necessary to reformat and do a clean install in cases like this.

 

[loanstar744]

When you run malwarebytes you can select which drive to scan. If it has found nothing except on windows 7 drive, you can select that drive only to expedite matters. It is usually necessary to reformat and do a clean install in cases like this.

Yeah, that's what I had to do as Malwarebytes crashed using to many resources, I selected my E:/ HDD and had it only scan that and only 2 minutes into the test it found 3 items, and now after 48 minutes it found 4 infected items.

Also, off topic, but, I need a 32bit version of Windows 7, as my key works for both 32 & 64 bit versions of Professional, but I only have my 64bit discs. Is there a way for me to even download the 32bit versions from Microsoft and not have to pay $300 again? Though a Microsoft representative told me I couldn't install Windows 7 on multiple computers, as I own 5+ older computer and 3 of which can run Windows 7, I just use my other ones as Video Game servers and what not, but they all run Windows XP, problem is Windows XP has internet issues so it's kinda hard operating a server that might fail because of a connection problem, that and I don't want to pay $300 for 3 more computers, that's extremely steep specially when I already bought it once.

 

[essenbe]

If you know someone with the same x86 version as yours you could borrow theirs and use your COA number. If you find someone elses to use, while you have it, create a installation USB key with it, for later use. You can also google for a windows 7 ISO. Just be careful where you download from or you could end up with another virus.

 

[loanstar744]

If you know someone with the same x86 version as yours you could borrow theirs and use your COA number. If you find someone elses to use, while you have it, create a installation USB key with it, for later use. You can also google for a windows 7 ISO. Just be careful where you download from or you could end up with another virus.

Yeah, I could just do that, but I do like to stray away from using Torrents, not because they're illegal, but as you said, I could get another virus, very easily too being that Torrents are P2P.

Also, back on topic, Malwarebytes freezes once it scans past a certain point, I've managed to kill all the malware on my Windows 7 HDD, but it seems it may have spread to my other HDD (Windows XP install), so now I begin downloading the updated version of Malwarebytes and see if I still get the same problem, and since it didn't complete the scan there was no log to see what file it got stuck on.
Will install and run the scan while I sleep, late night trying to fix my computer again.

 

[essenbe]

Do you have copies of all your personal info, pictures, documents etc ? Malwarebytes download But, you are going to need to reinstall in order to rid yourself completely of the viruses and repair the damage.

 

[gregrocker]

If you lose access to XP you can copy out your files using DVD or Repair CD: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

 

[loanstar744]

Do you have copies of all your personal info, pictures, documents etc ? Malwarebytes download But, you are going to need to reinstall in order to rid yourself completely of the viruses and repair the damage.

Not a problem, I have my external HDD for backing up, I'll backup all my data except for my Windows and unimportant folders and files.

If you lose access to XP you can copy out your files using DVD or Repair CD: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

I also made myself a WinXP Live CD a while back along with Ubuntu x64 10.10, I can run it live and backup as well.

Also, so far the scan on Windows XP has only shown adware, nothing else. Also need to run a virus sweep after, then try to boot into Windows 7.

 

[loanstar744]

Remember how I was speaking of an older piece of Malware where I had to replace the Explorer.exe because it was corrupted? Well, I booted Windows 7 up in Safe Mode with Command Prompt and it started without Eplorer.exe like normal, but, when explorer.exe isn't running, it acts fine, but once I start explorer.exe through CMD, it goes tight back to accessing the HDD to it's limit, but I have no idea what the problem is, even after replacing explorer.exe with a new from the same setup as I have Windows 7 also installed on an older system, so I copied it, went into WinXP, used Unlocker to delete the old explorer.exe and backed it up first then copied the new one, but still to no avail. Guess I'll just have to backup and reinstall Windows 7...wish there was a way to not have to, but I'm left with no choice.

 

[gregrocker]

What were the results of SFC -SCANNOW Command and Startup Repair?

If necessary run SFC along with Startup Repair from DVD or Repair CD Command line:
SFC -SCANNOW Run in Command Prompt at Boot
System Repair Disc - Create

I gave you a list of steps to try leading up to ones to get a perfect reinstall, after which I would avoid Registry Cleaners or any tweaking beyond normal System settings which will lead to problems like these.

 

[loanstar744]

What were the results of SFC -SCANNOW Command and Startup Repair?

If necessary run SFC along with Startup Repair from DVD or Repair CD Command line:
SFC -SCANNOW Run in Command Prompt at Boot
System Repair Disc - Create

I gave you a list of steps to try leading up to ones to get a perfect reinstall, after which I would avoid Registry Cleaners or any tweaking beyond normal System settings which will lead to problems like these.

Have the log file from SFC, and I tried Startup Repair multiple times but it never found anything, and SFC found items but would not repair them, so that leaves me with one other idea, an Upgrade Reinstall, if I can, this will put Windows 7 back to it's original state except I'll still have all my programs and the registry for them.

CBS log is attached from my SFC scan.

 

[gregrocker]

Unfortunately a Repair Install cannot be run from Safe Mode, so you'd need to get to the desktop to run it.

You may have no choice but to clean reinstall if SFC run repeatedly from DVD/Repair CD Command line (to avoid using System File cache which is corrupt) will not repair myriad corrupt files. Access Command Line by pressing Shift + F10 at first screen after booting DVD/Repair CD.

Here are tips to prepare and get a perfect reinstall: Reinstalling Windows 7

 

[loanstar744]

Unfortunately a Repair Install cannot be run from Safe Mode, so you'd need to get to the desktop to run it.

You may have no choice but to clean reinstall if SFC run repeatedly from DVD/Repair CD Command line (to avoid using System File cache which is corrupt) will not repair myriad corrupt files. Access Command Line by pressing Shift + F10 at first screen after booting DVD/Repair CD.

Here are tips to prepare and get a perfect reinstall: Reinstalling Windows 7

Well originally I was ABLE to get into Windows 7, it was just slow as hell, but I figured if I shut down explorer.exe it would speed back up, and it did, b ut now I can't even boot back into Windows 7 Normally, and I can't run the Upgrade through safe mode, as safe mode runs just fine as long as explorer is shut down.

I was running SFC from my Windows 7 disc, but it still gave me errors, and i just ran Startup Repair and it found a problem, but wasn't able to repair it, I need to fetch the log file for it, if there is one. So far I have all my important data backed up and am about to reinstall if this one last fix doesn't work.

 

[loanstar744]

Reinstalling Windows 7, I work and play from my computer, and I could have repaired it if Windows 7 hadn't BSOD'd randomly, but sadly I'm having to reinstall, but I did backup my files along with most of my program settings and specially my Windows Live Messenger settings, along with my much needed Firefox bookmarks and cookies.

I'm also a 3D modeler in training, and artist, so I couldn't really go any longer without my computer, but I thank you all for helping me, and I shall be saving more Restore Points to save myself from this and also, I figured how my Restore Points disapeared, when starting Windows XP, XP deletes the Restore Points, now from what I read it was only if they were installed on the same Partition, so I didn't think anything of it, other than that I can't think of anything else that could have happened to them as I don't delete them myself and I don't think this was a virus but more or less a bad Windows Update. Now, I shall roam SevenForums and help the people I can after I get my PC back up and running.