Hangs at mup.sys can't run safemode!

Hi! I've been working on a friend's kids pc that had 250+ viruses on it and it would only boot in safe mode. I removed the viruses, and attempted to run chkdisk/f, the system said it had to reboot to complete chkdisk, I rebooted and forgot it would only boot to safe mode and now it hangs at loading the mup.sys driver. I'm unable to get back into safemode or command prompt. I was able to launch the emachine recovery cd, but all I could get to run was ghost, and it advised running chkdisk cuz the drive has errors, I'm stuck, should I try and use my pc's winxp disk and try the recovery console on it? At this point we're ok with formatting and starting over anyways. Help appreciated!:confused

 

You can always rerun chkdsk /r within the recovery console, like you suggested.

 

try, booting from "last known good config" and see if you can load windows (F8 on boot up as with safe mode)

 

You can try unplugging all USB devices and sometimes it will go on into Safe Mode.

 

last known good doesn't work either. I'm going over tomorrow and try and get into the recovery console with my own xp cd, maybe that will work, if not I'll try disabling plug-n-play in the bios, maybe that will get me past mup.sys?????:confused

 

If that system had "250+ viruses" then I would recommend a "repair" of Windows because chances are something was modified that didn't necessarily need modifying.

If you're ok with formatting like you mentioned in your initial post I would go ahead with this.

 

does a repair require formatting?

 

No! It only requires a genuine copy of Windows and the disc used should be the disc that came with the computer.

Boot from the disc, when you get to the first screen go thru it. There will be two "Repair" options, do not choose the first as this will take you into the Recovery Console. You should check the second one.

Also, before doing all of this, did you try unplugging USB devices go get past "mup.sys" ?

 

I had a usb flash drive running on it, it was the only usb device, it may have caused the mup.sys freeze when I pulled it out, I'm unable to get into safe mode or get to the command prompt now, it just boots to the safe mode menu, then if I select any of the options, it freezes after loading the mup.sys driver, I have to shut it down, I am able to boot from the cd drive however. But I didn't have an xp cd, just a symantec ghost image restore cd that came with the pc. No restore menu on it.

 

So you do not have a WinXP disc?

I am not familiar with using a restore image using ghost.

 

All they have is a recovery disk with ghost on it, the pc has it installed in a partition, I tried to restore its image but the prgm tells me to run chkdisk. Which I cannot do cuz I can't get to the command prompt with the stupid mup.sys freeze up. I think I'm stuck until I can get past that and back into safe mode at least. I have a winxp pro disk of my own, I'm hoping I can use it to get into the recovery console.

 

yes, I unplugged the usb drive, rebooted, that didn't help. Still stuck at mup.sys. I did reset the bios to default, maybe thats where I screwed things up. I did that in an attempt to get the pc start normally, not in safe mode. Are you saying I can't use my own copy of xp to do the repair?

 

Well, it wouldn't be technically legal and you probably would get past WGA once it was completed.

You can however use it to get into the recovery console.

 

Well, I finally got past the mup.sys error, HOWEVER I'm still only able to boot to the safe mode menu window, can't get it to boot to last know good either. Any new ideas? I started the windows drive repair tool on the C drive in safe mode and checked both boxes, rebooted, it came back up to the black safe mode menu, I selected start normally then it loaded the drivers and stopped at mup.sys again, but I could hear the drive scanning for errors for hopefully that will do it. I left. Hopefully that will fix any errors and get it back normal boot!

 

guess that didn't work too well, they called and the pc was still grinding away this mornng...15 hrs later! I told him to just push the button and shut it down before it started on fire! agh. Guess chkdisk isn't going to get the job done. I haven't tried fixmbr yet....? last shot before reinstall???!!!:confused

 

The command "fixmbr" is not your problem, that's for fixing the master boot record.

Your last post you said "grinding", is there noise coming from the hard drive as in grinding? If there are abnormal noises coming from the drive this would indicate possible drive failure.

 

sorry, I exagerrated, no grinding, just running, lights flashing, display on mup.sys driver. I thought maybe it was fixing the errors, but it apparently was hung up. I tried fixboot, and chkdsk/r, before that, neither got me to normal boot At least I can access the recovery disk from the cd drive, I just don't know what else to try with it. Repair is not an option after the license agreement window, so I would have to reinstall, that would be my last resort. Any other ideas?