XP Hell

[kenyee]

If it's a brand new system, call Dell and they'll walk you through a system restore (HP/IBM/Dell usually have a partition where they have an image of the system as it's shipped so they can restore it back to that point).

If you have any data, boot up a Live CD (hopefully the antivirus software has it or you can download a different types of Linux ones), stick in a USB drive, and copy your data off before doing the above...

After doing that, buy a copy of TrueImage run it before any windows updates, etc. on the system drive. You'll be able to undo anything easily...

[JohnR]

Ken - do the terms SASID and LASID mean anything to you ?

[teaser]

John,

Was the virus some sort of self installed program that you just can get rid of like a PC scan/protection thing that keeps popping up on the machine?

I have in the last 5 weeks had to repair 4 computers for friends with that problem. It seems that there is some type of malware out there that is a killer to a machine and once it's infected the only way to get the machine back is to do a complete reboot with the factory discs.

There is a small partition on most PC's that is used for recovery but even those are being wiped out so you are basically scr*wed trying to just reboot or reinstall just the windows again, it has to be done like a brand new machine again from scratch.

Good news is the discs are usually about 23 bucks so it's not an expensive fix just a big pain in the @ss, still cheaper than a new hard drive too.

Good luck with it and remember ... computers are you're friends. So I am told.

[teaser]

Oh I forget to say that this new malware wipes out some "dll" files when you try to do a reboot and after that the machine acts exactly the way you described it.

[vineyardblues]

Thanks guys,
First off I am glad it's not my computer! It's a friend and it was in storage for a long time so I would think dell will not help out.
The funny part is it worked fine for a long time, they never surf the web just on line billing, the day it died their granddaughter got on facebook to show some pictures and also downloaded some poker game....Sad how it can crash and burn in minutes ..

[kenyee]

Originally Posted by JohnR

Ken - do the terms SASID and LASID mean anything to you ?

John:
'fraid not...different Ken probably :-)