Boot Virus Problem Please Help!!!

Hi, My friend who is 16 constantly downloads music and I believe he has a boot virus. He says as soon as he gets to the windows screen the computer restarts. I think it's a boot virus problem but i'm not sure if we can save his pc or if he's screwed and has to buy a new hard drive. Thanks for any and all input. I also told him to stop free downloading songs !!!

 

Last time that happened to me I didn't have to buy a hard drive. I simply formatted my drive and reinstalled the OS.

I'm sure it wasn't a virus though.

 

How would he format his drive? I'm trying to get as much information as possible for him because he is unable to troubleshoot because his computer now is currently useless to the reboot problem. He has windows xp.

 

Does he happen to have a Windows XP CD? You probably have to change the boot order for the XP CD to boot.

If he does have the XP CD, just pop the CD into the drive, change the boot order if needed.

Once the installation software pops up, the software will show you a menu of where you want to install your XP.

There, just select the old partition and hit delete. That will destroy everything that he used to have on the partition.

Afterwards, just select format on the unallocated space. Format it to NTFS, which is the file system that XP uses.

Select the partition you just formatted as the partition that you want to install XP onto. The process is pretty much automatic from there.

How to change the boot order:
1. get into the bios
a)Press esc, delete, f1 or whatever. It will say press <whatever key> to enter setup when you start up your computer.
2. find the thing that says something to the effect of boot order or sequence
3. Change it so that your CDROM/DVDROM drive is booted first.

EDIT:Oh yes I just remembered, can he get into safe mode?

 

Thank you I'll have him try tomorrow he's still in high school so he's sleeping so im unable to relay any questions to him. I'm trying to help him avoid telling his dad that he ruined the family computer, haha. He should be able to get into safe mode im not 100% though he said as soon as the window screen pops up it restarts. He did advise that he was able to get into a boot menu.I am not sure if that helps any. I really appreciate your help and patients.

 

Because if he is able to get into safe mode he should try a visit to the malware forum on majorgeeks. (be sure to get into the safe mode with networking though, or else you won't be able to download the tools)

I'm sure his dad will find out that he ruined the computer anyways if it is a family computer, because everything's gonna be gone after the reformat.

 

Yes this is very true, haha. He's probably done anyways this is the second time he's done this in the last year. I told him it has to be from his free music downloading he probably downloads thousands of songs and some of them were probably corrupt or something. It will still be better trying to fix it himself opposed to telling his dad for the 2nd time this year that he screwed their computer and giving it to the tech at his work.

 

So by putting the xp disc in the computer it will not restart like it normally does due to the possible virus?

 

sorry i read the boot setup instructions you gave thanks

 

yup, but tell him to go do the malware forum Read and Run Me First thread if he can get into safe mode. The format is used as a last resort. I kind of quickly assumed that he couldn't get into safe mode either, so make sure he can't get into safe mode before telling him the instructions. Also, if possible, instead of reformatting try using the repair function on the disk first instead of going right ahead and formatting. The process is the same except you don't format and you just select your current XP partition.

 

thank you ill respond on the same thread tomorrow to let you know how it went

 

i guess if he doesn't have the disk he's done or he could buy a new os disk form a store right?

 

Well, he could borrow one but use his own cd key. Otherwise, i guess he has to buy one. Or, if his computer's from one of those big manufacturers, you just have to use the recovery partition. Just follow the instructions go to the recovery when you turn on the computer.

 

Thanks my friend he was able to reinstall the os and is up and running and avoided confessing to his dad, haha. He just has to make something up when he tries to use turbotax come tax season time and all his info is gone!!

 

He should make a separate partition so that he can put the important stuff on it. That way, if something really messes up he can just erase the os and keep all of his important stuff. Otherwise, he could invest in an external hard drive or a data key or something of the like. Anyways you're welcome and good luck to your friend