ran SuperAntiSpyware and now comp won't boot

Welcome to Major Geeks!

Do you happen to remember what SUPERAntiSpyware found and removed? Was it atapi.sys? Something else?

What version of Windows are your running?
Do you have your Windows boot CD?

 

Not unless you unless you have a Factory Boot Partition that can be used to restore to the way it was shipped from the factory. I was not asking for the CD to do a reinstall. I wanted to boot to the Recovery Console to try and see if we could fix the problem. That is why I was asking about what was removed by SUPERAntiSpyware.

Is this a laptop? If so, that is even more troubling.

Do you have another PC and a Windows XP Pro CD somewhere? Even one you could borrow?

 

You're welcome.

Not sure! Is this a bootable disk? If it is a bootable disk, you could potentially at least boot to the Recovery Console to do a couple of checks for certain files that could be missing.

 

You have to put it into your CD drive and attempt to boot from it. You may have to change your BIOS settings to have it attempt to boot from the CD drive before the hard disk, otherwise it will just skip the CD and boot from the hard disk. You can read about the concept of Boot Disks and also BIOS in the below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_disk


Have you checked to see if your PC came with a factory installed recovery partition? Or do you remember when you first brought up the PC did it tell you that you need to make recovery CDs?

Even if your CD is a bootable CD that we can get to the Recovery Console with, it may not be easy to figure out what files may be missing and stopping you from booting, Operations that are available in the RC are limited. However you may be able to use a procedure like documented in the below to restore registry hives from System Restore which may work if your boot problems are due to a corrupted registry.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307545&sd=tech

 

You don't want to run chkdsk. You need to either run the procedure in the link from my last message

or we need to hunt around to see if certain files are missing. For example, we would want to know if the C:\Windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys file can be found.

 

In many cases it works okay anyway. Do you have things on this PC that you need to backup? If so, you may want to doing this first by taking the hard disk out and putting into another PC as a slave drive. Then you can copy files you need off of it.

To quickly check for the atapi.sys file you can run the below command from the C:\Windows> prompt of the Recovery Console.

dir system32\drivers\atapi.sys


Note the space after the dir and the direction of the \


If the above is successful at finding the file, you would see something like the below although the sze could be different depending on which Service Pack you are running

Code:

C:\WINDOWS>dir system32\drivers\atapi.sys
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is B46D-2068
 Directory of C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers
08/03/2004  10:59 PM            95,360 atapi.sys
               1 File(s)         95,360 bytes
               0 Dir(s)  15,737,491,456 bytes free
C:\WINDOWS>

 

Okay then my suspicion that the atapi.sys file was deleted could be correct. We need a replacement. Run the below command and see what is found:

dir C:\WINDOWS\ServicePackFiles\i386\atapi.sys

 

Okay that's good. Then run the below command:

copy c:\windows\servicepackfiles\i386\atapi.sys c:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys


If it is successful, it should say something about 1 file being copied. There is a space before each c:\windows

If it says it was successful, the below command should now show the file exists:

dir system32\drivers\atapi.sys


If it does now exist, see if you can boot the PC up.

 

Okay then give it a reboot! After taking out the CD.

 

You're welcome. Are you still having any malware problems? Like anything that prompted you to run SAS to begin with?

 

Then run the READ & RUN ME cleaning procedure and skip SAS this time just to be safe. Right now you will note the ComboFix is also offline so you will be skipping it too.

 

Don't reboot! Just run the scans and attach the logs from Malwarebytes, RootRepeal, and MGtools.

 

Your C:\windows\system32\drivers\atapi.sys file is already missing. While I look at your logs, use Windows Explorer to copy one from the below location:

C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$\atapi.sys

Make sure you copy the file. Do not move it which would remove the original copy from the above folder.

 

After copying the atapi.sys file as requested in my last message. Continue with the below.



Run C:\MGtools\analyse.exe by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator). This is really HijackThis (select Do a system scan only) and select the following lines but DO NOT CLICK FIX until you exit all browser sessions including the one you are reading in right now:
O2 - BHO: Search Assistant - {F0626A63-410B-45E2-99A1-3F2475B2D695} - C:\Program Files\SGPSA\BHO.dll
O20 - AppInit_DLLs: natulevo.dll

NOTE: HJT may popup an error about the AppInit_DLLs line. Ignore it and click OK to continue.
After clicking Fix, exit HJT.

Now download The Avenger by Swandog46, and save it to your Desktop.

• Extract avenger.exe from the Zip file and save it to your desktop
• Run avenger.exe by double-clicking on it.
• Do not change any check box options!!
• Copy everything in the Quote box below, and paste it into the Input script here: part of the window:

• Now click the Execute button.
• Click Yes to the prompt to confirm you want to execute.
• Click Yes to the Reboot now? question that will appear when Avenger finishes running.
• Your PC should reboot, if not, reboot it yourself.
• A log file from Avenger will be produced at C:\avenger.txt and it will popup for you to view when you login after reboot.

Now run Ccleaner. Only use the Run Cleaner button. Do not run anything else on any other forms.

Now run the C:\MGtools\GetLogs.bat file by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator).

Then attach the below logs:

• C:\avenger.txt
• C:\MGlogs.zip

Make sure you tell me how things are working now!

 

Edit your C:\boot.ini file which currently has the below info in it

Remove the offending line highlight in bold purple. Only remove that line and nothing else. The write the file back to disk and reboot and see what happens.


Run C:\MGtools\analyse.exe by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator). This is really HijackThis (select Do a system scan only) and select the following lines but DO NOT CLICK FIX until you exit all browser sessions including the one you are reading in right now:

O2 - BHO: BrowserHelper Class - {8A9D74F9-560B-4FE7-ABEB-3B2E638E5CD6} - C:\Program Files\SGPSA\SearchAssistant.dll (file missing)
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [KernelFaultCheck] %systemroot%\system32\dumprep 0 -k

After clicking Fix, exit HJT.

Now run the C:\MGtools\GetLogs.bat file by double clicking on it (Note: if using Vista, don't double click, use right click and select Run As Administrator).

Then attach the below log:

• C:\MGlogs.zip

Make sure you tell me how things are working now!

 

Your logs are clean.


If you are not having any other malware problems, it is time to do our final steps:

1. We recommend you keep SUPERAntiSpyware and Malwarebytes Anti-Malware for scanning/removal of malware. Unless you purchase them, they provide no protection. They do not use any significant amount of resources ( except a little disk space ) until you run a scan.
3. If we had you use ComboFix, uninstall ComboFix (This uninstall will only work as written if you installed ComboFix on your Desktop like we requested.)
   • Click START then RUN and enter the below into the run box and then click OK. Note the quotes are required
   • "%userprofile%\Desktop\combofix" /uninstall
     • Notes: The space between the combofix" and the /uninstall, it must be there.
     • This will uninstall ComboFix and also reset hidden files and folders settings back to Windows defaults.
4. Any other miscellaneous tools we may have had you install or download can be uninstalled and deleted.
5. If we had you download any registry patches like fixme.reg or fixWLK.reg (or any others), you can delete these files now.
6. If running Vista, it is time to make sure you have reenabled UAC by double clicking on the C:\MGtools\enableUAC.reg file and allowing it to be added to the registry.
7. Go to add/remove programs and uninstall HijackThis.
8. Goto the C:\MGtools folder and find the MGclean.bat file. Double click on this file to run this cleanup program that will remove files and folders related to MGtools and some other items from our cleaning procedures.
9. If you are running Vista, Windows XP or Windows ME, do the below:
   • Refer to the cleaning procedures pointed to by step 6 of the READ ME for your Window version and see the instructions to Disable System Restore which will flush your Restore Points.
   • Then reboot and Enable System Restore to create a new clean Restore Point.
10. After doing the above, you should work thru the below link:
    • How to Protect yourself from malware!

 

You're welcome. Surf safely!