NTLDR problem

man, you guys/gals freakin' rock!! basically, i've been working on my friends computer (heavily infected with spyware, and virus). i'm guessing somehow i got something corrupted (well not really me), and then of course it would not bootup anymore (that's where i left off last night). 1st thing this morning, i checked here and found a few links. of course with my luck, it wasn't all that easy, the floppy wouldn't fit into the drive (i found a mini cd stuck in their drive (so that drive didn't work), i copied the files to a blank cd (changed order in bios), and that didn't work either. i sat around for a bit and remembered i have an old computer (that doesn't work, and is collecting dust) that i have taken the h/d out of, and it had a floppy installed it. swapped it out with my friends and now i'm back in business!!

one question though. i copied those files to where they need to go, but do i need to edit the boot.ini file? i just tried to reboot their computer without the floppy, and it started up fine.

it probably would be easier for me to wipe their h/d clean, and reinstall xp, but i don't know if i would need drivers for their m/b, or any other devices (sound card, etc.). this is a custom built comp with a ABIT (NF8-V) m/b, and of course they don't have any cd's (os, or drivers). should i decide to reload their os, would it be beneficial for me to run an everest report now? thx, sos

 

Running Everest now or after the hard drive reformatting shouldn't have that much of an impact on results. If the computer boots fine, does Windows work ok?

If Windows isn't working properly and the owners don't have anything on the hard drive that they want to save, then reformatting and reinstalling the OS would be the most time efficient method to use. Malware can be removed, but it can be a long and enduring process.

"Custom Built" is only a reference to a computer that wasn't made by one of the larger manufacturers. Anyone can assemble a custom built computer using the parts of their choice.

I think that you will be pleasently surprised at the amount of drivers that XP SP2
has and the products that are supported and recognised.

Should you decide to go with the format and reinstall, I would recommend downloading the hard drive manufacturers software and zero the hard drive to an as manufactured condition, or use this http://www.majorgeeks.com/Dariks_Boot_and_Nuke_d4596.html. Either option would overwrite the boot sector which I believe that a regular format doesn't. I'm sure that I will be corrected if wrong on this!

Hope this helps!

 

well the only reason i was asking about the everest thing was to identify what is on there now (hardware). i actually started another thread, which i have more questions in detail (as well as screenshots).

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=145351

i know sometimes (most all the time) it takes a long time to remove spyware, etc. (i consider it like peeling an onion, layer after layer, until it gets smaller, and then finally you have nothing - scans are clean). i know it would have been wayyyyyyyy faster to do a reinstall than try to clean theirs (considering how polluted it is/was), but i wasn't sure about drivers for the m/b, etc. anyway, thx for your response. - sos

oh, and it does boot up, just a little sluggish, and i've noticed a couple of things that don't work right. like they had the guest account on, and it would never give me an option to get to the guest account, it only goes into main account (no password setup). i've shut off the guest acct., but i've yet to go back and turn it back on, to see if i can get to it (there is stuff in there i need to delete - saw it scanning in there, like ie temp files). thx again, sos