Please help, can't start laptop

Hi all,

Today, I completely ruined my day by opening a virus from a download. At least that's what I think. The download came from usenet, and was posted by Yenc-pp-a&a, in case someone might be familiar with him/her.

At first I tried installing the programme yesterday, whilst I did not have an internet connection. This did not work. This morning I tried to again, whilst being online. About a minute after, my computer shut down and rebooted. Unfortunately, the reboot couldn't start windows. I can access a command prompt from the recovery on my x drive, but that's about it. Recovery itself is not available either.

Subsequently, I brought my computer to a support shop. They tried to access the hard disk, first of all to try to save my data. When that did not work, they tried to format the disk and reinstall windows. They were unsuccessful, as there is no way for them to access the disk. The disk itself is running, and when plugging it in to another computer, windows plays a sounds indicating something has just been connected.

Is there anyone that knows what to do?

I can't access my pc, so the specs I can't give you. It's an HP Pavilion DV6-3137ED XD492EA, with windows 7 home premium

 

Thanks for you fast reply TimW. There is as far as I know no way to boot the disk itself. I'll try to use a boot cd to clear the disc.

At the repair shop, I know that they tried to connect the drive to one of their systems. It was not visible in their explorer when they tried to do so, however. Do you have any suggestions on how the disk could be accessed? If there's no way to access it then cleaning, or even formatting it will be impossible, right?

 

I'd suggest using a bootable Linux Mint or other live Linux distro, boot from the CD/DVD, and attempt to access the hard disk that way. Often times viruses that disable disk access don't break the access from within Linux.

 

Uhmm, I'm in BIOS, but i'm not quite sure where to look. My BIOS version is insydeH20. It has the 4 menu's; Main, Security, Diagnostics & System Configuration. I am able to run a Primary hard disk self test at the security menu, which will take approx. 2 hours.

mscmc, thank you for the tip, I'm downloading it now. If this works, what would be the best way to remove the virus from the drive? Will any antivirus programme do? Or is there a specific programme that will work best (and is available for linux)?

 

Let me ask what error do get when you try to boot the laptop normally? What exactly does the screen say after the HP/BIOS screen ends?

 

Well first it shows a screen which gives me two choices. Either start windows normally, or start boot help (not quite sure if this is the right term, it's in Dutch on my pc). The accompanying text indicates that windows cannot start as changes have been made to either my software, or my hardware.

Regardless of the choice I make, I end up at the HP support menu. Here most of the options are unavailable. I can start up a command prompt from x, but that's about it.

Regarding the drive check, it runs and finishes, but doesn't really give me any information. Does the fact that the primary hard disk self test actually runs give any indication to the status of the drive? Whether or not it is dead or that something is preventing it from being read?

Still working on the linux btw, put the download on at my flatmates computer yesterday night and went to bed. Unfortunately it didn't dl properly, so trying again now.

 

From the X: prompt try two things.
Type C: and hit <enter>
Type dir and hit <enter>
What is the list of files?
Then type D: and hit <enter>
Type dir and hit <enter>
What is the list of files?
I don't need a complete list of files. I want to know if there is a Boot directory/folder on either or both drives. And which drive has Windows and Users folders.

 

For both/all of my drives, it indicates that the device is not ready when I try to access it

 

Hmmm, I would say the HD is bad but the Recovery options such as the command prompt have to be stored/coming from somewhere. The only place is the HD.

Try at the x: prompt
Type in diskpart then hit <enter>
Type in Select Disk 0 then hit <enter>
Type in list partition then hit <enter>

Do you get a list of partitions--or do you have a problem selecting disk 0 (zero)?

 

Yeah that worked, here's the list:

Partition no. -- Type -- Size -- Offset
Partition 1 -- Dynamic Data -- 199 MB -- 1024 KB
Partition 2 -- Dynamic Data -- 299 GB -- 200 MB
Partition 3 -- Dynamic Data -- 20 GB -- 445 GB
Partition 4 -- Dynamic Data -- 103 MB -- 456 GB

 

Ok, so the HD is there. I have to check on what the Dynamic Data means. You can type exit <enter> and then exit <enter> to quit the command prompt.

I'm in the middle of something so I'll think about a way forward and post back within the hour. I don't want to jeopardize your ability to use the command prompt.

 

Cool, thanks for the support!

In the meantime probably the linux download will be complete, so i'm gonna try that avenue as well. *hoping for the best*

Cheers

 

I'm still not able to focus on this yet but this should be more informative:

Try at the x: prompt
Type in diskpart then hit <enter>
Type in Select Disk 0 then hit <enter>
Type in list volume then hit <enter>

When done:
Exit <enter>
Exit <enter>

 

Ok, here'e the results:

Volume no -- Ltr -- Label -- Fs -- Type -- Size -- Status -- Info
Volume 0 -- D -- (blank) -- (blank) -- DVD-Rom -- 0 B -- No Media -- (Blank)
Volume 1 -- C -- (blank) -- (blank) -- Removale -- 0 B -- No Media -- (Blank)

 

Sorry, one last one:

Try at the x: prompt
Type in diskpart then hit <enter>
Type in Select Disk 0 then hit <enter>
Type in detail disk then hit <enter>

When done:
Exit <enter>
Exit <enter>

It appears there is a problem with the partitions or the RAID settings because you should have at least some sort of filesystem showing somewhere.
I'm guessing the above is going to show very little but I want to be sure.

 

Good news. I made a linux boot disk and it's working!! I've done a quick check and all files seem to be there.

Now run antivirus, right? I've done some looking around and would avira antivir do? It runs on linux as well, right?

 

I'm not sure about the antivirus. I'll take a look at Linux Mint in a minute (I'm not sure how to run that off a live CD).

You might want to try and copy some of your most important files to a USB flash drive while you have them available.

 

I really don't see any way to run Avira from within Linux Mint but have only a passing knowledge of installing Linux software. Avira does have a bootable CD available which I assume has some sort of scan program. http://www.avira.com/en/support-download-avira-antivir-rescue-system

**
I'm not so sure this is virus related. I'm not familiar with Dynamic discs so I'm unsure how to read partition information.

Try this:
Go to the Menu button then in search box type gparted
Gparted will be listed over on the top left. Click Gparted
Let it run and give a picture of your HD in graph format. Leave the window open.
Go to Menu button and Click Accessories and then Take Screenshot.
The screenshot program seems a bit odd but have the gparted window showing and move the Take Screenshot program over to the side and take the snapshot. It should save to the desktop.
Upload it to something like tinypic and post the URL here at MG. (The screenshot software makes the pic too large to attach directly to your post here at MG.) Something like this: http://tinypic.com/r/rm3frr/7

What I'm hoping to see is if 1) partitions are listed and 2) if a particular partition is listed as boot and 3) if the partitions show NTFS as the file systems.

 

Ok, here's the picture:

http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i362/Evertmeijer1/Screenshot.png

I've downloaded Avast Antivir, as I read it's easy to install with Linux. However, I don't know how to install it, or it's not working cause i'm trying from a boot drive. I've never used Linux before, so really can't tell. I took a picture of how i tried to do it and the desktop as well:

http://i1090.photobucket.com/albums/i362/Evertmeijer1/Screenshot-1.png

 

I apologize but I have a project that has to be finished by the end of the day. I have don't have a clear path forward because I don't understand dynamic discs. I'm concerned by the large unallocated space as that would be unusual on a store bought computer. It may have something to do with it being a dynamic disc. I really don't want to give further advice until I can test a few things.

Even though you have access to the basic recovery options I think downloading a recovery CD may be useful. If you download by torrent program they are free. http://neosmart.net/blog/2009/windows-7-system-repair-discs/ [I'm thinking perhaps it might be worth a try to set the 229gb partition/volume to active/boot and then use the recovery CD to fix the startup issues. This may not be an option for dynamic discs but I am going to test it later today. Just a thought that you might want to download the ISO and I will let you know if I find anything useful before you decide on whether or not to burn it to CD.]

***
Again, I don't know about Linux and installing packages unless it is automated. I can look at that later as well but I doubt I will be of much help.

 

Hmm, when I got this laptop I made a partition myself. Just to separate my software and system drive. I don't know the sizes of the partitions by heart, but it looks like the unallocated partition might have been the partition I made. That would mean its contents are gone now, right?

I would like to try running antivirus before trying recovery though. Is there anyone who knows how to run antivirus when using linux mint from a boot cd?

This is probably gonna be my last post as I'm leaving for the weekend. Will be back in touch on sunday.

Cheers

 

Sach, have you been able to figure out if setting the unallocated space to boot would work?

The steps would then be:

- Burn recovery cd
- Set unallocated drive to boot
- Boot laptop with recovery cd in it

I've never done recovery before, so don't know how to go from there. Is it an automated process after this?

Also, is there anyone that could help with the installation of avast?

 

Hi,

I've been looking at the dynamic disk situation and I think that may be a major stumbling block unless you convert the HD back to basic. I'm not sure a linux CD will be able to navigate the dynamic disk to run an antivirus program.

1) Download the NeoSmart disc burn it as an image file and make sure you can boot to it. (Important!) Just put it in the laptop and make sure it boots up and goes to the boot from CD/DVD screen and then the language settings window. I just want to make sure it boots correctly because you will need it if we make another partition active.
2) I can't load the gparted screenshot (problem with photbucket link today.) can you reupload it?
3) Also try giving me a screenshot from TestDisk.
Menu button>System Tools>TestDisk
Create is highlighted so hit <enter>
Highlight Disk /dev/sda and hit <enter>
Intel is highlighted <enter>
Analyse is highlighted enter>
Quick Search <enter>

 

I was able to load the gparted screenshot. So I don't need that.

What I am thinking from my experimentation with dynamic discs is that you will be unable to recover your data (the unallocated space) unless you switch to basic disc. No third party partition recovery program will work with dynamic discs.

There are two ways to do that.

First, would be to make sure you have the recovery CD then set sda2 to active/boot. This would make your Windows partition the active partition. You will then need the recovery CD to try and put boot files on that partition. If that works and you can boot to Windows then you can verify that you have lost one partition, and your data, to the unallocated space. With that verified you could use Easeus Partition Master to change the HD from dynamic to Basic and then use the program to try to recover the lost partition.

If, because you are working with a dynamic disc, setting sda2 to active and trying to copy boot files to it with the CD does not work then I would use TestDisk from the Linux CD to change from dynamic to basic and then go ahead and try to fix the boot files. Get into Windows and try to recover the lost partition.

Those are the two ideas I have come up with.

 

I did just try Avast for Linux using the deb package on Linux Mint. It seemed to install fairly simply.
I went to the folder containing the .deb file and right-clicked it and chose to open with Gdebi package manager. It installed. I went to the Menu button and typed in Avast. Avast appeared at the top right and clicking on that started the program and asked for registration key ( I didn't bother signing up with Avast for the key) so it appeared to install correctly.

**I am booting from a USB drive with persistence (which allows installation of files). It is possible that your installation problems are related to using a CD. If you have an empty USB thumb drive you can put your Linux Mint ISO (32bit is best for compatibility) on that using http://www.linuxliveusb.com/ and choosing to give it at least 600mb for persistence. (The program formats your USB key so it has to be empty).

I still think your problems are related to boot files rather than a virus. Most viruses do not keep you from starting Windows. There would be little point.

 

Ok, I've tried setting sda2 to boot but recovery doesn't work. Whenever I try, i get a screen where I can choose between repair, or recovery from a previously created image. I don't have an image so that's a no go, but repairing is not an option either, because there are no volumes listed. It's not recognizing the hard drive, or any operating system present.

Also, yesterday I ran the avira rescue disk,which found some trojan horses. Unable to repair, it isolated and renamed the files. I've attached the log in case it might tell you anything.

Also, I don't have testdisk on this version of mint. I downloaded the stripped down version as our internet is quite slow and i figured it would be faster. The regular version does contain it?

 

Oh btw, here's the information i got when i entered the detail disk command:

Disk ID: F2F188E2
Type: SATA
Status: Invalid
Path: 0
Target: 0
LUN ID: 0
Location path: PCIROOT (0) #PCI (1100) # ATA (C00T00L00)
Current read-only state: No
Read-only: No
Boot Disk: No
Pagefile Disk: No
Hibernation File Disk: No
Crashdump Disk: No
Clustered Disk: No

There are no volumes.


Also, in diskpart I tried selecting the second partition to make it active. I wasn't allowed to select it, however. Here's how it looked:

DISKPART: SELECT PARTITION 2

Virtual Disk Service error:
This operation is not allowed on an invalid disk. The disk may be invalid because it is corrupted or failing, or it may be invalidbecause it is OFFLINE.

 

I guess Mint is one of the few Linux that doesn't include testdisk. Two options on that are download partedmagic.iso and burn that (about 157mb).

You could, first, try an install of testdisk on Mint but may not work. Open Terminal and type in the command sudo testdisk it should then tell you testdisk is not installed and give you a command to install it. Copy and paste the command and try to run it. If it won't install then partedmagic is probably the next best option.

When you get TestDisk please post a screenshot after doing the quickscan so I can verify that the starting and ending sectors of the partitions look good. I want to make sure they don't overlap. They shouldn't but I just want to verify.

*****
You can try a few things with the recovery CD while you wait for parted magic to download. (Not really necessary as changing from dynamic to basic will eventually have to be done. You can just read through because once the disc is set to basic we will use these steps to get your boot files up on the OS partition if necessary.)

When you run the recovery CD and get the no OS listed then does it try an automated repair or just take you to the list of 5 options? If it doesn't do any automated recovery you can select Startup Repair from the list of 5 options. Then reboot the CD and see if the OS is now listed. Allow automated repair. Reboot and try Startup Repair from the list of 5 options one more time. That should take you back to where you were originally with Sda1 active.

The other thing is if we use diskpart to select an active partition the command to select a partition is "Select partition=2" (notice "=" sign).

 

Hi Sach,

Yesterday I downloaded a knoppix cd, which did contain testdisk. I used testdisk to change the partitions, by following some step-to-step guides I found online. Most of the time, I barely know what I was doing, but eventually I managed to set the system partition to primary boot, and the other partitions to primary partitions. After this, my system recognized the disks again, but windows still wouldn't start. Repair didn't work either, so I decided to reinstall windows.

That worked perfectly, and I'm using my own laptop to type this message right now.

First of all I'd like to offer my thanks to you and others that have helped me. You've been an amazing help, and without it I would have had to take the laptop to a support shop (which meant losing all data and would take 1,5 weeks). So muy gracias!

Second, here's a link with the current partitions. Do you think this is the right way to format them?

Cheers!

 

Good work!

The partitions look fine. TestDisk can be a little tricky but it always seems to work when other programs fail.

The only thing I see is that the unallocated space at the end of the drive 103mb used to be an HP_Tools partition. You might try Partition Wizard and use the partition recovery option to see if it can find that partition and restore it. Or you might never want to hear the word "partition" again!

If you decide to try the Partition Wizard program you would click on disk 0 and choose Partition Recovery from the left. Let it scan the full disk and do a quick scan. It should show the four existing partitions and perhaps the last 103mb with the label HP_TOOLS. You would mark the boxes for all 5 partitions (you must mark the boxes for ALL partitions you want to keep) and then Finish. Then in the main window hit the Apply button to write the changes. Guide: http://www.partitionwizard.com/help/partition-recovery.html I'm not sure how useful the HP tools are it is just something I noticed.

I'm glad you are up and running!

 

Haha yeah during the process my affinity for partitions has lessened somewhat

Still, I think having the HP-tools is a good thing. I tried using the partition wizard to recover it, but it stays unallocated after recovery. Basically, recovery doesn't seem to do anything, and it's not possible to apply either. I've set it as a logical drive in Testdisk, as I was not allowed to set more primary partitions. Is that why it is not being read properly?

Also, I've got some installation programs (such as HP systems diagnostics) that indicate they should be installed on the HP-Tools drive. As they cannot locate one, they want to create a new partition for it. However, there are already 4 partitions, so they (still talking about the install programs) are not allowed too.

Any suggestions for this?

 

I've been thinking about this and I can't come up with any good suggestions. There is no way around the 4 primary partition limit.

The only two options I can come up with are:

1) Delete the System Reserved partition which isn't technically necessary. It is for the safety of having your boot files on a separate partition so it is harder to damage them from the OS or a virus. The Windows Recovery CD can write a fresh copy to your C: partition if necessary. (I don't like this option much because I think it is best to keep things to a standard Win7 setup for simplicity. Deleting the System Reserved partition involves then setting your C: partition to active and using the Win7 Recovery CD to write a copy of your boot files to the C: partition. And of course you end up with an awkward 200mb unallocated space at the beginning of the HD.)

2) Since you have four partitions that need to be bootable, thus primary, (System Reserved, C:, Recovery and HP_tools) the one to make logical is your Software drive (because it is just data). There is no direct conversion so it would be copy all the data to a folder on the C: partition then delete the Software partition. Then Create a new logical Software partition in the newly created unallocated space and copy the data back. Afterwards Partition Wizard may be able to recover the old HP_Tools partition or you could let your program that wants to create a new one go ahead and do it and install the tools on it.

I just don't see any other options. This situation is probably how the disk was originally converted to dynamic when you did your original repartitioning.