Windows XP will not boot hd or CD/DVD boot disk

[m_evans]

I have a Compaq box that based on the owners description I believe is a virus based issue. They stated that the machine was giving them pop ups for Virus Scan 2010 or something of that nature and the box was protected by Norton with what they tell me were updated definitions. That issue when on for a month or two then one day the machine stops booting windows.

Issue:
-Start Machine and all post pass then after you get the start up menu
-If you select “normal” you get the Windows Splash Screen for about 20 sec then the box reboots
- If you select safe mode you get about 20-30 lines of files before it begins the reboot mode

Actions

-Placed windows xp disk in drive and set bios to boot from drive – NOTHING
-Placed Acronis Rescue Boot Disk in – NOTHING
-Then for giggles placed a few other “boot” disk in and you got it – NOTHING
- I removed the drive and placed into a spare machine as slave and scanned the disk with 0% fragmentation and 0 disk errors. I made a back up using Acronis True Image and all appears normal.
- I pulled the DVD drive and works fine on different machine.


So I am unable to access Windows repair console and unable to boot any disk. Yet the HD checks out good on several checks that I have ran. What am I missing here and did I explain it clear?

 

[B Trevathan]

Sounds like malware may be a rootkit

I don't know why it wouldn't be able to boot from the DVD drive.

DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK, but this is what I would do if it was me.

Your other problems sound like malware, possibly a rootkit, slave the drive again and scan this time for malware, while the drive is slaved load the slaved drives registry and check under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
look in the right pane under Name and find Shell and Userinit they should just say something like:
Shell REG_SZ Explorer.exe
and
Userinit REG_SZ C:\windows\system32\userinit.exe,

A lot of malware ethier block safe mode or delete the safe mode keys in the registry, while you have the drives registry loaded look for the safe mode keys under:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\SafeBoot\Minimal

Hope this helps

 

[atlanticjim]

If your boot CDs do not boot:

CD drive is broken. <- I would test this first by hooking up a known good CD drive to the mobo and using live CD.

Mobo broken or bios corrupted.

Unless you have a rare bios virus, the live CDs completely bypass the OS and will work with a completely trashed HDD or OS.

__________________________
As far as infection goes I would suggest that after you get the Live CD to boot, use DrWeb Live.
Then as suggested before sfc /scannow.

 

[studiot]

Surely it's obvious

Disconnect all drives

Does the machine boot to bios/ OS not found error ?

If no the fault is on the motherboard, perhaps in the bios or the machine has something like securom.

If yes make sure boot from CD is enabled then reconnect CD drive only.

Does the machine boot from CD?

If no the CD drive is at fault

If yes then you need to investigate the hard drive.

 

[tre]

Do you have a spare optical drive? I've seen perfectly working CD drives in the past just completely refuse to launch a bootable CD. Plug in a second CD drive and it'll boot from that just fine. I never could figure out why, but once you get a way to boot from a CD, mission accomplished IMO.

Here's how I would approach that computer:
- Connect hard drive as slave to another computer. Run a few anti virus programs over it.
- Chkdsk /r the drive (sound like you already did this)
- Plug back in and see if it boots. If not, plug in the secondary optical drive and boot an XP cd. Go to recovery console and try chkdsk /r again
- If still no boot, boot back to XP disc and try a repair install

 

[JW The Computer Guy]

Is it possible for a virus to flash/overwrite the BIOS?

If so, try getting the latest BIOS and flash it.

 

[B Trevathan]

Are you guys reading the same thing that I am?

m evans post says that he:

• Set BIOS to boot from DVD drive
• Tried booting from many different DVDs
• Pulled the DVD drive and checked it in another PC
• Pulled the Hard Drive and slaved it and scanned for errors

 

[studiot]

'Set BIOS to boot from DVD drive'

well yes he says he did, but we all have off days where we forget to

'save changes and exit'

or change the jumper after changing machine or whatever.

 

[kisk]

any type of BSOD or is it just rebooting? have you tried moving the HD to another machine and checking for dumps?