Safe mode does not succeed

My laptop is really ailing lately. When I boot, I get to Windows desktop. And no action is possible. Screen doesn't respond. I move mouse pointer to the taskbar, and I just get a constant hourglass. Can't even do Start/Shutdown.

So I try starting it in Safe Mode. Can do that. Wait. Get Safe mode desktop. Unfortunately, it is the same here. Can't get a response. Desktop is not responsive to mouse clicks.

A bit of background. It was for a few weeks that I was getting a lot of notices from AVG about virus or trojan or something. small.downloader perhaps. But AVG never got rid of it.

I can't work out what is the approach to take at this point. How can I try and get things going again?

Help me un-poltergeist my machine please.

 

OOOOH Nasties!! You can try the great people at the spyware forum (very very good) here at MG...sounds like it got ya ..

Do you have the restore cd or original os cd ..Sounds like you may need it
More pc info can help us to help you (os-..etc..etc)

 

Hi and welcome to MajorGeeks.

Visit the SPYWARE FORUM and follow their recommendations in the "stickies".

If necessary you can post there and they will sort you out.

 

Yes, nasty poltergeist! Echoes from a dark malware underworld. And shrieks, and groans, and shadowy figures.

Back to normal space, it might be a little late to really investigate from the spyware case. I want to go half that way. But. Can you follow such stickies if you can't boot to Windows? And you can't boot in Safe mode?

Do I have a restore CD, or original OS CD. Well. My laptop is used. I have the OS. Windows 2000 Pro. Machine is IBM Thinkpad. 192 Megs RAM. Lots of software on the machine. Had AVG. Had Adaware.

I can tell from recollections of what I might have heard, and checking out some websites, that it seems like I should be able to trial in a few ways, and try to recover.

I think it is mainly like being infested with Poltergeist. And you need the professionals. (What are they called from the movie, do you remember?)
Windows is clearly there. My documents and files are probably all fine on the system somewhere. I just need to coax things forward.

Perhaps to some degree that I just have this used machine, that I am not very informed what options are.

 

OK.....You can not boot into windows?
You can not boot in safemode?
You have a copy (cd) of windows 2000 proffesional w/ serial # ?
Are you currently running w2k pro as your os ?
Can you get into your bios settings (usually f8 -f9) ?


" you might ask yourself in all the excitment did he fire five or six shots Hmmmm do ya feel Lucky "

 

I'm no expert on Windows 2000, but I'm fairly sure that if you set your Bios to boot from CD, then reboot with the CD in your drive you should be able to do a repair in much the same way as it's done on XP.

Then I would suggest you pay a visit to the Spyware Forum to make sure this doesn't happen again.

You do have a Windows CD don't you?

 

Yes, I can enter my BIOS. Yep, I can boot a CD.

Do you think I should ask Spyware people how to fix a Windows that doesn't startup normally?

One of the messages I had been getting was about:
Trojan Horse Downloader.Generic.AJW

Yes, I have W2k pro.

 

Then try a repair as I suggested then try the Spyware Forum.

 

A quick question. You can't get into either safe mode OR normal mode.

Can you bring up the task manager by hitting CTRL + ALT + DEL?

If so, any proccess under, PROCESSES tab, show CPU usage at 50+? If you have a System Idel Process at 99, then don't worry.

If you have some other program that has quite a bit of the processes, you can select that process and END TASK it.

If in safe mode, what errors do you get? None? Can you get into the task manager using the above means? And click on File, then Run, then type in CMD (press enter)? Does the command prompt show up?

Or, you can ignore all this and try a repair installation. Though, that is a 50/50 chance in fixing the situation (I find atleast).