[timat10]

I volunteered to help a friend fix his malware/trojan infected Dell 2400 Windows XP Home Computer... which he had been using up until he brought it to me. I have not been able to boot into anything. I've accessed the bios settings and set the CD ROM to boot 1st & only, but apparently the Dell Reinstallation Disk is NOT a bootable CD. I inserted a Windows XP Pro Installation CD in and couldn't boot it either, although it flickered and worked for quite a while then prompted me to try again. I just wanted to see if the CD ROM was working. I'm still not positive it is, although the owner said they were just using it yesterday. I've visited help forums and tried about everything I can find for the past 8 hours and nothing has worked. Can't boot into Safe Mode, ran some kind of diagnostics from within BIOS or BOOT menu, but only flashed a screen list of files and quit.

What I'm wondering is, can I create a Bootable floppy from another working Windows XP Home computer and use it to boot the infected one? I thought about attempting to create a bootable CD, (UBCD4Win) but it looks extremely deeper than I believe I need to go, unless it's the only alternative.

All I get is the BSOD, "A Problem has been detected and Windows has been shut XXXXXXXX
**** STOP: 0x000000024 XXXXXX

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Tim

[jrbuergel]

Check here; http://www.updatexp.com/stop-messages.html for your specific stop code 24. And look here; http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/Windo...es-t43519.html , http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page ,which is a Linux based boot CD with repair tools with some help for windows issues. And there is a plain version of that ultimate boot CD which you can get easy; http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ , Also you can try to reset the BIOS settings to "optimal defaults", or remove the CMOS battery for a little while, which should do this same thing. I suggest for boot device order to have; CD/ROM, Removable, and last hard drive.

[The Hound]

Stop error 24 usually points to a corrupt NTFS file system.

With a Dell, try putting the XP disk in the drive, starting the machine from cold and immediately tapping the F12 key until you get a boot menu. Choose the option to boot from IDE CDROM.

When/if you get a "Press any key to boot from CD" message, I like to use the space bar...it seems to bring me luck.

If that's successful, type R at the next prompt, choose the Windows installation you're trying to repair, and enter the Administrator Password when prompted.

At the C:> prompt, type CHKDSK /R and press the Enter key.

The scan may take quite some time, and you should not interrupt it.

If you get this far, let us know the results of the scan.

I'm not sure you can use an XP Pro CD to repair an XP Home installation--you should check that.

If you don't succeed, can you be a bit more specific about how booting to the XP CD fails? Word-for-word error messages are helpful.

If you're able to determine the brand and model of the Hard Drive that's acting up, you may be able to download and create a bootable floppy of diagnostics for the drive to rule out hardware failure.

Much luck...

[timat10]

I was never able to get the machine to boot to anything, I tried all the options. I don't believe the REinstallation disk is a bootable CD.
I actually wasn't trying to use an XP Pro CD to boot with, I just wanted to see if it would recognize it, got nothing there either. Actually I think I got a message that it was not the same OS. Which would lead me to believe the CD ROM just needs the correct bootable disk.

I'm going to research the links in the other posts for now, but I guess tomorrow, it was suggested that I slave the HD to another computer and attempt to access it and repair it that way. Looks like something I might be able to accomplish. I was just hoping there was a floppy or a CD that would boot up and let me run CHKDSK, Malwarebytes and some things like that.
Thanks for the advice
Tim

[The Hound]

An XP Home CD will work where an XP Pro CD won't allow you to get the recovery console. Running chkdsk from there looks to me like the best chance you have to get the machine bootable again.

Can you borrow one? Bring one from another machine?

Slaving the drive in another machine may allow you to copy off some files that may be lost if the disk can't be repaired.

There's a program called Bart PE which would allow you to create a bootable CD, but you'd need to build it from a Windows XP CD....so I don't see the advantage yet of trying that over booting to recovery console from an XP Home CD.

[timat10]

You mean I could borrow someone else's Windows XP Home Installation CD and repair with that? Would probably not work without having SP3 on it would it? ... if I can find one.
I believe that if I can run CHKDSK on the drive, and then perhaps the miraculous (thus far) Malwarebytes.org, I could probably revive it.

I've been reading the Bart PE instructions and seems pretty difficult. I think there was an option that if you didn't have the Windows XP CD, you could actually retrieve & create one using the content files from the Dell REinstallation CD, but it 's all too confusing for me.

I think I'll try to Slave it. From what I understand you can run programs on your machine and direct them to scan that drive and make repairs. And, like you said, if it doesn't work... I can at least save his Novels he didn't back up.

[The Hound]

Slave the drive and save the novels first---those can't be reinstalled if the drive fails completely.

I'm not seeing what Malwarebytes can bring to this party at this point. It's a great malware removal tool, but I think you need to get the chkdsk done to check the integrity of the file and directory structure.

Again--any XP Home CD should work for what we're trying to do once you've backed up the novels or other unreplaceable information on the disk---that's to boot to the CD (F12, IDE CDROM, press any key, R for recovery console, select the Windows Installation, enter the Administrator Password if there is one, and run chkdsk /f from the c:> prompt.

If you have time once the drive is slaved in another machine, you can try running
CHKDSK D: /f (assuming the drive you're slaving becomes the D: drive in the other machine. Change the letter when you find out what drive letter is assigned in the second machine.)

If chkdsk is not able to close all handles and lock the volume, it will offer to run chkdsk then next time the machine restarts....just reboot.

[timat10]

Have not been able to run anything on this drive, although the USB to IDE adapter allowed me to access and see the drive. I was able to download Western Digital Testing software:

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST Model Number: WDC WD80 0BB-75FJA1 Unit Serial Number: N/A Firmware Number: 3G14 Capacity: 80.00 GB SMART Status: Not Available Test Result: PASS Test Time: 11:12:28, December 03, 2009

It passed every test, I just can't do anything with it. I'm trying to find out if I should (which I do seem to have the option for) go ahead, give up the data, Format the Drive from here, reinstall the drive to the original computer and attempt to reinstall windows xp home. I just never could get the thing to boot to the CD as it should have. Maybe formatting would fix something so it might work? If i can't install the OS that came on the Dell CD, I guess I could just try and install a copy of my XP Pro Install CD on it.

[The Hound]

If you're able to see the drive using USB from another machine, try this:

Click START, click RUN, type CHKDSK /F D: (this assumes that the D is the letter assigned by the machine) in the Run Line--that's a forward slash (/) behind the F--it's found on the same key as the question mark (?).
Click OK.

The chkdsk may run if there are no open handles, otherwise you'll get a black window with a message like this:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock current drive.

Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)

Type Y and press enter.

Reboot, and chkdsk will run against a blue screen before Windows loads.

Post back any message you get---word for word if you can.

[Lance1]

If it is a problem with NTFS you can download and run this recovery app called DiskInternals Boot CD It has an NTFS recovery option and works quite well. It's built via Barts-PE and you'll need the XP CD to build it.

[timat10]

I ran the CHKDSK /F D: command, a black screen pops up then disappears instantly. No chance to even read it.

I looked at the Barts PE thing and didn't really ever understand it. Besides, I do not have a Windows XP Home CD, just a Dell Resources Disk that supposedly has the OS on it along with diagnostic tools etc etc... which I can't access on that machine, but can on my laptop, but it says it's for a different OS than what I'm running... of course. So I can't run to fix the attached hardrive via USB drive.

Tim

[timat10]

ooops, for some reason it's running chkdsk this time using CHKDSK /f E: (which is what I meant the first time). We'll see what happens here... it says it's fixing a bunch of errors, may eat it all up. ;-)

[timat10]

It's a miracle. After the 10th attempt to run CHKDSK (and 24 hrs. of frustration) it finally worked, fixed errors, accessed the Dell Resource CD that I had accidentally left in the drive, installed some files and opened up an explorer windows with all the files on that disk. I'll run Avast & Malwarebytes on it and see if I can get it all back together now.
Thanks for all your help, and I really love my SABRENT USB 2.0 to SATA/IDE Hard Drive Adapter... a great investment.
Tim

[The Hound]

You're welcome--running chkdsk brought it back this time, but I wouldn't count on that drive lasting too long (though it may). I sure wouldn't put anything valuable back on it.

Hard drives are cheap---save yourself a large headache down the road.