Problem with corrupted SAM hive...

Recently a downloaded a tv eipsode for a friend of mine via torrent the thing downloaded fine but whenn I went to open the file after scanning it (which reported it clean both by AVG and Spybot) the .wmv file told me it needed to download a digital media rights before opening. It was a file I designated a spot on the hard drive and after it downloaded I scanned it and again was reported clean I never got the video to play even though the rights were supposedly installed. Shortly there after I started to experience strange occurances throughout my PC system.

First I couldn't ctrl alt delete to task manager Vista would kick back a error saying "Failure - Security failure" with the heading "Winlogon could not detect security settings" or something to that effect. My internet connection was shutdown as it lost my IP and I immediately assumed it was malware. Though I did pick up some malware in subsequent scans it was nothing out of the ordinary and looked like the same junk that I see from time to time. After doing a scan with all my anti malware software (AVG, Spybot, Ad Aware those were my scanner software) I restarted my computer. When I did it got to the point where Vista itself was to be loaded I got a bluescreen with no time to write it down. I freaked out and tried several times to run windows first normal mode then safe mode. Neither worked. Because my sister lost my Vista CD while packing boxes I had no choice but to use the OEM restore option and reinstall all of Vista. Lucky for me the option I chose backed up all my original data.

I then set the computer back up again pushing to the top of my list of priorities Updating Vista again and reinstalling and implementing my protection programs. Everything seemed fixed. But today I attempted to install Service Pack 1 which would be for the first time and the install went fine and it even shut down nicely but when Vista was to startup again I got the dreaded bluescreen again this time I set it so that the error would stay onscreen and it produced the following error:

Stop:c0000218 {Registry File Failure}
The Registry cannot load the hive (file):
\Systemroot\system32\config\SAM
or it's log or alternate.
It is corrupt, absent, or not writable

Collecting data for crash dump...
Initializing disk for crash dump...
Beginning dump of physical memory.
Dumping physical memory to disk: 100
Physical memory dump complete.
Contact your system admin or technical support group for further assistance.

This seems to be the same problem before I reinstalled Vista. I'm going to assume the infection before the reinstall damaged the SAM. Ok fine. I did the reinstall and today I did a scan of my PC with my new Avira Antivir which I got from the homepage. It picked up several trojans and viruses but when I looked at the list of files most of them came from various backed up folders so I quarantined them. One of them came from H:\resycled\boot.com. This worries me because this is my recovery partition now I have to find that Vista CD... So if this is the case where do I proceed from here? Because I refuse to restart my PC till I get this sorted out or I at least get a handle on the situation.

 

One final note. When I reinstalled Vista after the initial incident I had used the same name and password for the administrator account. So could it have been a conflict with the SID assigned to that account by Vista? I remember my professor in school talking about that. Anyway I don't seem to pick up anymore serious malware just tracking cookies like the one from here. So that threat is removed going on day 2 and still no problems this time I used a different account name and password and when I reformat the drive I will do the same thing. Also could a Windows Update have damaged the registry hive during the subsequent reinstalls? I haven't done any updates this time yet. But I think I will download all of Service Pack 1 and install it all at once. Rather then get it through Windows Update.