Having problems booting up my computer after malware removal.

Hiya, i was referred to this forum by chaslang about a week ago, if i'm not mistaken, and i need some help getting my computer to start.

What happened was while i was browsing www.4chan.org i got some malware, probably from one of the adds, at least that's my best guess, and my computer was getting pwned. Long story short, my computer couldn't log onto the internet due to the malware, or it's reaction to the malware. I did the "RUN AND READ ME FIRST" that chaslang directed me to and using a CD and my family's computer, i was able to restore my internet, and start cleaning my computer. The malware seemed to stem from a vundo trojan, i think it was... I forget, though i do know one of the programs that i used in the cleaning process identified it as a trojan. Anyway, when all was said and done, i re-ran SUPERAntiSpyware, and it found some, of what it identified as, "Spyware(or malware, i forgot) tracking cookies" and it needed to reboot in order to get rid of them.

I hit okay, and got hit with this message when it tried to reboot.

"windows could not start because of the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file."

chaslang referred me to this site "http://pcsupport.about.com/od/findby...singhaldll.htm"
and i tried to fix the problem.

The issue seemed that i needed to go to the recovery console in order to do what i needed to do, and that i needed a windowsXP disk in order to do it. Well, i got one, my family's and i couldn't get it to work. I also couldn't get it to work on my family's computer, but i'm a total noob when it comes to this stuff, but ah well.

Fast forward to today, i went to a PC supply shop and got a new windows XP disk and he even showed it to me on his computer to make sure it worked, and i came home, and it still didn't work.

I went into the BIOS and switched the order of the boot devices so that it'd go for the CD drive first instead of the hard drive, but that didn't work. It just refuses to read the damned CD.

Though, i do think i found some useful piece of information today. I went into the Boot Device Menu and selected the "*Onboard or USB CD-ROM Drive" option and it kept giving me this response;
"Selected boot device is not available -
strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility".
How do i make it available?

Anyway, the original thread i put up in the malware removal forum is "http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=156404" incase you need more detailed info on how i got to here and now i need to know what i should do from here!

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Do you have a floppy drive? If so download a Windows 98SE bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com. This comes with a IDE CD driver. This may then allow you to access the CD and the recovery console.

 

If Yargwel's floppy boot disk is not an option, open your SetUp utility (f2)
Look for installed drives.
You should see at least 2, your hard drive and your CD ROM.
If you do not see a CD ROM device then make sure all the drives are set to "Auto" or "Auto Detect".
Save your changes and let the computer reboot.
Return to your setup (f2 again) and see if you are showing a CD drive. If so "Save changes and exit".
Try the Boot devices again and see if it will allow you to select your CD as your first boot device.

 

Ah, Yargwel, i do have a floppy disk drive, but i don't have any floppy disks.

joelsz, i went to the drives option and i found a few options.

*Diskette Drives
*Drive 0: SATA-0
*Drive 1: SATA-2
*Drive 2: PATA-0
*Drive 3: PATA-1
*SATA Operation

on Drive 1 it says the Drive ID = Unknown when i turned it from off to on, though it doesn't seem to change my situation.

Eitherway, uh... which drive is the CD one or how can i tell which one would be the CD drive, and then how do i set it to auto or auto detect? =X

 

How many hard drives and CD ROMs are actually in our computer?

 

uh... i think one hard drive, one CD drive, one floppy disk drive, and a DVD drive..

 

OK
I'm trying to make sense of :

When you first start the computer, before the screem that says "Windows", you should see a startup screen similar to this

This example shows 1 installed hard drive (top arrow) and 1 installed CD drive (bottom arrow)
What is showing on yours
(This screen may go by quickly, but you should be able to see how many drives there are.)

Why I'm doing this is to make certain the CD drive is being seen by your BIOS (Basic Input Output System)

 

Alright, i'm not getting to the screen you're showing me. This is what happens when i start my computer.

I press power, the screen turns on, and the first screen it shows is a black screen with a huge DELL logo in the middle, with right under it "www.dell.com" on it.

In the upper right hand corner it says
"Press F2 for Setup
Press F12 for Bootmenu" Or something like that.

Then under the dell logo it says

Dimension 4700 Series
(little grey bar that fills up and when is full goes to the next screen)
BIOS Revision A06


And when that grey bar loads, it takes me to the next screen, and it tries to read something in like 2 seconds and goes to the.

"windows could not start because of the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file."

error message. I'm not getting that loading screen which i think would usually come here instead of the error message.



The thing i showed you was from the F2 setup menu thingy.
the menu has about a dozen different options on the left, and i went to the Drives tab and it has that list i showed you.

*Diskette Drives
*Drive 0: SATA-0
*Drive 1: SATA-2
*Drive 2: PATA-0
*Drive 3: PATA-1
*SATA Operation

I'm pretty sure Diskette Drives are for floppy disk.

*Drive 0: SATA-0 gave me the following info when highlighted.
*Controller Details
*Controller = Serial ATA
*Port = SATA-0

*Drive Details
*Drive ID = WDC WD400BD-75JMCO
*Capacity = 40GB
*BIOS = This drive is controlled by the system BIOS

I'm pretty sure this is the hard drive.

*Drive 1: SATA-2
*Controller Details
*Controller = Serial ATA
*Port = SATA-2

*Drive details
*Drive ID = Unknown

no clue what this is. It literally says "Drive ID = Unknown"

Drive 2: PATA-0

*Controller details
*Controller = Parallel ATA
*Port = PATA-0 (PRI IDE Master)

*Drive ID: HL-DT-STDVD-ROM GDR8163B

I'm pretty sure this is the DVD ROM.

*Drive 3: PATA-1
*Controller details
*Controller = Parallel ATA
*Port = PATA-1 (PRI IDE Slave)

*Drive Details
*Drive ID = HL-DT-ST GCE-8483B

Maybe my CD ROM? I have no clue.

Also, just yesterday my dad decided to give my computer a look at and said he needs a DOS screen in order to do anything and concluded that my CD drive is busted, but he's not exactly the most technically inclined. It'd be a weird coincidence since i was using the CD drive to put malware removal programs onto my computer when i had no internet at first and to have it break RIGHT when i needed it to do a boot from a windows XP disk? I dunno but i think something else might be an issue here.

Right now though, Drive 2. I'm wondering what exactly do the drives do? Do they read the physical connection between the wiring and the computer? I'm wondering right now... Like in the post on the malware forums i mentioned my mouse right in the first post? Well often times, my computer just flat out stops reading the mouse, and i get a sound from the computer notifying it doesn't read the mouse. Sometimes i have to go down to the base of the tower, pull the mouse wire out, and then plug it back in for it to start reading it, though my tower is facing toward me in a small narrow area next to the desk, and i can't see behind the computer when i do that. I'm wondering... if maybe i pulled out a wrong wire and plugged it in a different port, and that's whats causing my problem. Now, i have no idea which wire it could be or where it would go if that was the case, but is this in the realm of possibility? Could this be why my computer isn't reading my CD ROM? I don't have any wires just haphazardly unplugged, so they're all plugged in, but what if one was plugged in wrong?