Need Help Please...no Network Access After Windows Update. Network Works In Safe Mode

I did restore default settings on my belkin router when the problem started. I accessed the dns, a box is checked that allows the router to get it automatically from the ISP. there are no values listed for primary and secondary

 

I had to access my router page on my tablet since I couldnt through firefox or IE in normal mode on my desktop

 

In the absence of any suggestions from others here I can only suggest you try running tweaking.com again, only fully this time rather than just network. Takes about an hour. I really thought we had cracked it once we had pinned it down to DNS.

 

i'll run windows repair again

 

ok. windows repair finished. it required me to run a check disk at reboot after the repair was finished. when it rebooted chk dsk tried to run but couldnt because of "recently installed software package". desktop loaded and still shows "no network access"

 

Suggest you visit the malware forum and go through the READ AND RUN ME FIRST

 

I probably should have done that first.

 

I think I might just go ahead and restore my OS using the image I made 2 yrs ago and put on a flash drive.

 

No one can say we didn't give it a good shot. Hope your image is good

 

I just think it might be easier to restore now. I kind of want to go through the malware thread but theres no guarantee it will work so idk. The image I have is about 2 yrs old from when I first got the computer. it should be ok.

 

if i do restore, should i be in safe mode when transferring files off of my pc onto a flash drive? is something like that necessary even though there may be malware present?

 

I don't think it will make any difference how you decide to copy your files off, but I would definitely image the system again once it's restored and updated. I image every system here once a month at least.

 

thats something I should have done and will do periodically from now on. Im going to start moving files off. and then restore. ill let you know how it goes. Im really grateful that you could help. we did give it a good try.

 

You know your way around and I don't want to overdo the suggestions but one change I would advise after the restore would be to create a data partition. It eases the imaging process and keeps your data safe from any future system problems.

 

I know only very little about computers. I wish i knew a lot more. And any advice you have is very welcomed. I had someone build this pc for me and I believe he partitioned the 1 tb hdd into a c and d drive. the windows os is on c. my main bulk of files is on d.

 

Interesting. So was your image created before or after he partitioned it? If after then you may be able to restore only the problematic C drive. Depends what software you used to create the image and whether it was an image of the entire drive or just of C:

 

the image was made after it was partitioned. he built it and shipped it to me. I made an image file backup after I received it per his instructions. He had a file that had LiLi usb creator and a clonezilla live iso file

 

Im not sure how to check to see if it is an image of the entire drive

 

I've no experience of imaging that way so can't advise on restoring. Better to get help from the builder if you're stuck.

 

supposedly I can use the flash drive with the image file and load it from the boot menu during startup. and i think it will only restore the C drive with the OS on it. however im still copying all of my files onto a new flash drive to be safe

 

ok. backed up my files on to a flash drive. used the old flash drive with the image file and pressed f12 during startup to go to the boot screen. i chose to boot from the usb hdd and it came back with a "boot error". im stumped as to what to do now

 

I also have the disc image file in a folder on the pc. can i try to restore using this file while its on my desktop?

 

If it's an iso file you could burn it to DVD and see if it boots. If not I think you should consult the guy who set it up for you. Win 7 will burn an iso to disc, just right click the iso file and select Burn disc image, don't try just copying the file to disc as that doesn't work.

 

first i need to get a dvd big enough to hold the file which 9.9 gb. i dont have one right now. I dont know why it didnt boot from the usb hdd in the bios screen. no clue why there would be a boot error. could i do a restore from the image file without going to the boot menu?

 

i do have some rewritable cds unused but it only has a 700 mb capacity

 

AFAIK the max capacity of a dual layer DVD is 8.5 GB so that isn't going to work. The difficulty now is that while nearly all the regulars here do image their computers, none of them AFAIK use CloneZilla and I've never seen it even mentioned in threads. Did the guy leave you with instructions on how to use the image, or are you just hitting and hoping? Can you contact him for advice?

The most I can do is take a look at CloneZilla and see if I can come up with anything. I'm not hopeful though as that could prove just too time consuming. In the meantime, as you have no way to reinstall 7, you could go through the malware removal process.

 

Possibly a chink of light at the end of the tunnel. One way forward might be to try to get this non-booting flash drive booting, and the ConeZilla site has a number of ways of doing it. Method B looks good to me.

http://clonezilla.org/liveusb.php

 

yes. i have contacted the guy and am waiting for a reply. he did leave instructions for making the image file and placing it on flash drive. If i ever needed to restore he said i could plug in the usb, restart, and use f12 to get to the boot menu screen where i can choose to load from the usb hdd. when i did that it comes back with a "boot error" message. i even tried through Control Panel, Recovery, and Use image created earlier, but when it searches for the iso file it says it cant find it. it's definitely on my flash drive and also in a folder on my C drive

 

in the meantime i could go through the malware removal process. and i can try method B that you found on clonezilla. thank you for finding that

 

wont be able to do anything until later when im off work

 

The control panel > recovery route cannot work because it's only looking for system images created with Win 7 Backup and Recovery. It won't recognise images created any other way.

 

method b thats listed to make a bootable clonezilla usb, does that require an empty flash drive? could i use the drive with my image file on it without losing it?

 

Your flash drive must already have a small FAT32 partition containing the boot files and a larger partition containing the image. By following the instructions all you will be doing is overwriting the existing boot files with new ones which we hope will work. Unless you make a mistake the image itself will not be affected as it is in the other partition. You could remove all doubt by looking at the flash drive in disk management - the two partitions should be shown along with their attributes. Ideally I'd ask you to clone the flash drive first but that's not practical.

 

i uploaded 2 images i took from disk management. The flash drive that is supposed to have the image file doesn't seem to be partitioned. And when I open the flash drive to look at its contents I dont see the image file on it. its a 16 gb hdd that has 14.54 of actual space. It only shows about 4.5 gb of free space and the other 9.96 gb is the image file but it doesnt show up

 

Disk management doesn't show contents, you have to look at the drive in Windows Explorer for that. I can only go on what the clonezilla website says, and it says you need a 200MB+ FAT32 partition, so that's what I expected to see, plus a second much larger partition to hold the iso file. I just haven't got the time to create a clonezilla bootable flash drive and test it, sorry, and as it seems the iso file is in the same partition as the boot files I can't recommend trying method B now in case it overwrites the iso. You will have to get help on this from the guy who created the image.

 

im still waiting to hear back from the guy but hopefully he has some info for me. I apprreciate your input on this. If for some reason the image doesnt work to restore things, i would probably have to buy a new windows cd and do a fresh install

 

I have yet to get a reply from the guy im waiting on but a friend mentioned that I can reinstall windows without a cd as along as i have the product key.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7
...Wondering if this would work

 

It would work, but I don't think the MS download accepts OEM keys. Anyway, try it -

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows7