Need help and advice

Toshiba Satellite 1135-S1552
OS: Windows XP Home

Hello,

My son's laptop will boot, displays the desktop (background and icons), but system appears to be hung. Although arrowhead cursor appears over the desktop and looks normal, the hour glass appears when positioned over tray at bottom...tray is hidden. All attempts to initiate any applications results in no response.

Before this all happened, I had initiated a Auslogic disk defrag before starting the malware removal procedures. I was able to run CCleaner and the Registry cleanup successfully and was going to update the McAfee virus dats but first had to provide wireless access to the network. During this effort to access the internet, the system began displaying error messages. I can't remember what they said specifically except "...system has encountered a major error..." and asked for permission to send the information to Microsoft. Although I should have, I did not look deeper into the error messages.

Via F8 at bootup, I can get to safe mode with command prompt; safe mode by itself displays only a black screen.

I have a spare copy of Windows XP Pro which I can install onto this laptop but need some advice on how to preserve anything that is loaded on the hard drive. There is only one main C: partition. I am not too concerned about any installed software applications per se. My main concern is only for any saved documents, pictures, etc. My son has asked if I can save his iTunes.

I would appreciate any guidance and advice. Thank you in advance.

Blaine

 

This is just a question not a suggestion. But have you tried to boot from the cd and institute repair console..

 

When you boot to "just the cursor appears" do a ctrl-alt-del & start new task & type explorer. See if the desktop appears.

 

Buggabear: Yes, I have booted from CD with WinXP Pro and started Repair console. Unfortunately, it asks for ADMIN password which I don't have so things end there after 3 failed attempts. I don't know if my CD being XP Pro rather than XP Home has any impact.

Foogoo: I have not attempted starting just Explorer following a 3 key restart. Will give it a try.

Thanks for the input,

Blaine

 

Foogoo: Well, just tried the ctrl-alt-del. No response; totally dead and unresponsive. Couldn't even get a chance to start new task.

Also, I found an old copy of XP Home which is no longer being used on any system. I tried to see if it makes a difference Home versus Pro versions. No dice. I was stopped by the request for administrator's password which I have no clue. Any ideas or advice or whatevers on how to get by this?

Thanks again for reading and providing some assistance.

Blaine

 

Re: Need help and advice - Update

Well, on a whim, I used F8 to get a Safe Mode with Command Prompt, then changed to D-drive CDROM. Loaded a CD with copy of XP SP2 and executed the file. Lo and behold, the system began extracting files to a c:\987e.... directory. Next a dialog box appeared for SP2 setup wizard, followed prompts, and system began update process. It proceeded until a Stop Error box appeared which stated...

"STOP ERROR C:\windows\system32\drivers\ndis.sys is open or in use by another application"

"Close all other applications and then click Retry"

There were two button boxes marked RETRY and CANCEL.

Well you can guess the dilemma. I was in SAFE MODE and couldn't stop that process without also stopping the update process.

My next move is to create a bootable CD/DVD with the XP SP2 update file and give that a try. So now all I need is to figure out how to create a bootable CD or DVD. Any recommendation on easiest way to accomplish this task?

Thanks,

Blaine