Win98 reboot-loop

win98 reboot-loop, virus or software?
win98, DSL, the hard drive was bought in 2001

I asked about this in the virus section, I was told it was software related and that I needed to ask here.

I'm was stuck in a reboot loop where I couldn't even get to safe mode, just the command prompt.The PC would just hang before getting into windows. I thought my PC was dead for a month until I restored an auto-saved registry from the command prompt. Now that I am back in safe-mode I'm not trying to go into normal mode until I figure out what went wrong.

I'll try and get through what happend as briefly as i can:

At first the main problem was the online connectivity cutting out after two or three pages. I found I could get online after each start-up but then it would cut off. That's the main reason I thought it was a virus.

I'm not sure if it's related but it started at about the same time:

Upon bootup I was getting this repeated OS window saying (I'm remembering it here, so its not exact) " C:windows\....ZONE\ init.DLL not found, you are probably missing a root certificate."

I uninstalled ZoneAlarms, found a ton of registry errors in CC relating to Zone alarm and removed them, and found a ton of Zonealarm related entries in Hijack this and removed them.

I had to update spy-bot mannually as it kept getting blocked from online access. It found nothing.

Then I tried to back up files on disk with Nero and it wouldn't load, I got this message:

"Nero
The Win-ASPI file '?.?' cannot be found, therefore you can currently select only image recorders. this missing file is one the Windows 95/98/Me files Please fix this program. Error 16: No adapters"

Some window popped up where I had to manually chose a drive and I picked my CD-R and then got to the 'add-files" part of Nero. The PC hung during file selection. I then had to reset the PC, that's when things got really bad.

I entered the reboot loop, at first only being able to get into safe-mode and then eventually not even that. As i mentioned , I got back into safe-mode by restoreing the registry but I can't imagine that would solve all my problems. My Zone alarm and nero where corrupted and my spybot couldn't get online. My online connectivity kept cutting out.

one last thing: my dlink wired adapter was still functioning enough to rout my Wii after my PC died but the router itself died soon after. It just doesn't power on anymore. could a dying router have caused problems on the PC?


Is a reboot-loop like this just mean your screwed?

So as long as i'm in safe-mode my PC is ok, what should i do ?

 

First, you don't want init.dll so that security certificate thing should have been ignored.
init.dll is spyware http://www.processlibrary.com/directory/files/init/26661/

Second, I'm not sure you were correct in removing Zone Alarm because your

could have been a Security Zone and not at all related to Zone Alarm.

Third, HijackThis is not run to clean up leftover registry entries when a program is removed so I can't begin to guess what damage you did by running that. This program should only be run under the eyes of an expert who can tell you exactly what should be done.

Unless you have an image of your computer when it was working properly, you are left with two choices, neither of them great. Get out the restore/recovery disks or the 98 windows OS and do a clean install or see if your computer can be upgraded to another operating system.

The problem with the first choice is that you might have a hard time finding and installing all the security patches because MS ended support over three years ago, July 2006. The problem with the 2nd choice is that you might spend money on an upgrade disk and then discover that your computer doesn't have the hardware required for the upgrade.

If I were you, I'd save money for a new computer and in the meantime run a live linux CD to surf.
Live CDs are here http://www.livecdlist.com/
for someone who might be new to linux, I recommend Ubuntu, Puppy or PCLinux.
Since you have an older computer, puppy might be a better fit for your hardware.

 

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=195068

zone alarm has discontinued support for microsoft os's pre xp. it will give you that error, about vsinit.dll

try running the steps in that post to remove zone alarm completely. your symptoms of losing internet after a few minutes is exactly what was happening to me on/after that date listed in the post. I'm not sure that will solve all the problems you are having, but it will help.

 

Well i've allready removed zone-alarm without changing the date so it's a bit late. I'll try changing the date now but I don't see how it will make any difference.

Ok...so there is nothing left for me to try from safe-mode?

It is good to know that it was a zone-alarm problem all along and not a virus or hard-drive problem. That makes me more confident that I can try and get back into normal mode and try and backing up some files. But I wonder why everything de-graded from there.

Should I try and re-install Nero so I can back up files? Or is that asking for it?

My floppy is the only thing working...one idea I had was backing up my bookmarks but the file is 3mb and floppy's only hold 1.7 mb or something. When I double click the bookmarks file I exported from fire-fox they open into a browser window. Is there anyway for me to split my bookmarks file into two halves so I can get them onto two floppys? that would help me savemy bookmarks at least. Is there such thing as high capacity floppies?

 

Sorry, forgot to ask....Is 'an image of my computer' the same as having a good back up of the registry?

I can't make any fixes to the PC in safe-mode?

 

No an image is a byte by byte copy of everything at a certain point in time.

It's a bit too late now but you could have emailed your bookmarks as an attachment. When the computer is working, grab the email and download the attachment and you have all your bookmarks on the computer.

 

Quick recap 'cause this is an old thread.. I couldn't get online for more than a few minutes at time, I thought I had a virus but it turns out it was a result of some glitch with zonealarm going out of date. After uninstalling zone alarms and removing alot of stuff through hijackthis I then got caught in a reboot loop......the reboot loop got really bad until I restored an old registry.

It turns out that merging an old registry was enough to get my system back into normal mode.
Like smokingun said above I've turned the date back to before july 15th 09 even though I had already uninstalled the program. The problem now is I can't go online for more then a few minutes again! Smoking Gun said uninstalling was enough to fix this..now that it is already gone I don't know what else to do.

Also, at this point I don't know if this belongs in networking or software or back to the virus forum.


P.S

I also got this window asking me to update my adobe flash upon start up, which I terminate with the crtl-alt-delete task menue. I find it wierd that the falsh would ask to be updated like that, could this mean I have a virus after all?

 

A reboot loop as in boots up, fails, restarts, Rinse&repeat? the registry backup fixed that, thanks, Ill try that

 

Is vsinit.dll safe to delte?

How much is known about how this unremoved/outdated zonealarm glitch works?
I'm wondering if I may be able to fix the problem by finding anything from Zonealarm that wasn't properly removed. In the thread that smokinggun linked to :

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=195068

It mentions how vallidation fails for
C:\Windows\system32\VSINIT.dll and also for vsdata.dll. ,wich is what had happened to me.

Although I couldn't find vsnit.dll in system32 I did find it in the "system" folder. Is 'vsinit' related only to ZoneAlarms and is it safe to delete that to see if it keeps my online from hanging?

While I was in there I also
saw these suspicious entries:

Zonedoff.reg
Zonedon.reg

zlcomm.dll
zlcommdb.dll
zllictbl.dat

Could these entries be causing the problem? plodr mentioned something about how I may have accidentally removed entries in hijack this relating to SecurityZone and not zonealarm which may have caused some damage. As I only have one or two pages to surf to at a time I can't do all sorts of research, so I'm just jumping straight to the forum. How safe is it to tinker with these dlls in the system folder?

thanks for any feedback

 

http://www.gwtechonline.com/dnlds.html
right column, download and run ZFix for Zone Alarm.