Booting Problem

[phrze]

This is a problem my friend is having and I am going to try to help him. I can always reformat, but he doesnt want to since he has some information on there he wants keep. The computer boots up and all and gets to the screen to choose bootup, like Safe Mode, Normal Mode, etc... once you choose one of them, the computer freezes and he has to restart, bringing him back to the same screen. Anyone know what could be causing this and how to fix this?

 

[mechBgon]

I can suggest a course of action:

• Get your own system's antivirus software up-to-date with today's antivirus definitions, arm it with maximum detection options, and then take his hard drive and temporarily put it in your system as a secondary drive
• Run an exhaustive antivirus scan on his hard drive (this could take a LONG time if he has a lot of data, so make sure you have enough snacks to last you through it :Q)
• Once the drive is declared clear of viruses, find the data files he wants to keep and copy them to your own hard drive or burn them to CD
• Now take his hard drive, put it back in his system, reformat it, and reinstall Windows. You might want to give the hard drive two partitions so it has its own "holding tank" for this situation in the future... you can save files to the second partition, then reformat and reinstall on the first one.
• After Windows is installed, either recover the files from the CDs you burned, or put his hard drive back into your system a second time and move the data files back over.

You didn't specify what flavor of Windows, but I strongly recommend reading the "VERY IMPORTANT" section on my page here and following that routine. Don't want worms tackling your vulnerable fresh unpatched Windows installation, now do we 😉

As for the actual cause of the problem, the field's wide-open, ranging from viruses/trojans/worms to spyware to hard-drive errors or other system problems. Anyway, good luck 🙂

 

[phrze]

He cant run virus scan cause he cant even get into the actual OS. Is there way to run it without being in windows or no?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: phrze
He cant run virus scan cause he cant even get into the actual OS. Is there way to run it without being in windows or no?

I think you didn't quite read what I wrote. 😉 You take his hard drive out of his non-booting computer and put it in your computer to do the scan. If you need antivirus software yourself, head to Grisoft for some AVG Free Edition and hook yourself up with free ZoneAlarm basic firewall for good measure. Set up AVG Free Edition to use Heuristics and click the Save Settings As New Default button, go to the Update tab and get the latest updates and set it to update every day.

Hope that helps 🙂