Windows XP Won't Boot Correctly

Hello all. I've been having a series of escalating problems starting a few days ago. This is going to be a long summary, but I'll try to keep it as brief as I can without leaving anything important out:

At some point, I noticed I couldn't access my Task Manager - when I hit Ctrl + Alt + Del I got a message saying the Administrator had disabled my access to the Task Manager, which is odd because I am the administrator.

I figured it might be a virus or some spyware/malware, so I ran scans for both. They found a few things, and quarantined/deleted them. However, the problem was still there.

I also noticed that I couldn't open My Computer - the system didn't freeze or crash when I clicked on the icon, it just didn't do anything.

I poked around online and found a way to get access to the Task Manager again, and found a suspicious-looking process called elg64kyt1o.exe running a few copies of itself. Whenever I tried ending the process, it would come back with two or three times as many instances running. At one point, I had over 350 copies of the process running, which obviously slowed down my computer quite a bit.

Sometime around this point, I got a BSoD, and am no longer able to boot normally, boot with Last Known Good Configuration, or boot in any type of Safe Mode. No matter which option I pick, Windows will start loading for about two seconds, then Blue Screen and restart.

I've tried using the Recovery Console for a few different things. CHKDSK /P and CHKDSK /R have told me that there is some kind of error, but won't tell me what it is. Bootcfg /Rebuild returns an error saying that the scan of Windows could not be completed, and tells me to run CHKDSK to find the error, which it doesn't.

I tried doing an in-place upgrade of Windows XP through the Recovery Console. This seemed to work at first, but when the computer restarted to finish the installation, it hung after a few seconds and then Blue Screened and restarted again, never finishing the installation.

I also tried a method of System Restore through the Recovery Console described here, and that seemed to work as well, as it allowed me to boot into Safe Mode after the first step or two.

However, when I went to do the actual System Restore in Safe Mode, I found that there were only two restore points listed, both of which were conveniently after this whole problem started. I tried the earlier one anyway, and the restore worked, but the whole booting problem remains.

Is there anything else I can try? At the very least, I could wipe the drive and do a fresh install, but I haven't backed it up in quite a while, so I'd at least like to get to a point where I can get some files off of it.

If there's anything else I can try in Safe Mode, I might be able to get back into it again by doing the first step or two in the process described in that link I mentioned.

Sorry about the lengthy post. Thanks in advance for any ideas.

 

Thanks for the reply TimW. Do you happen to know of a handy or simple guide to slaving a drive to a different computer? I've never heard of this before. Or at least not that terminology.

 

PlateCaptain,

I agree with TimW that this should have been posted to MalWare forum.
I wonder if it is still not too late to be posted there. I know Antivir has a freeware ISO image that, if you can get to a working computer, and have an ISO creator, you can burn to a CD. It will run off the CD in its own environment. Though it may not fix your issue, I believe it is limited, but if it does not do the trick, perhaps someone int Malware Forum has an idea of another similar program that may.
If you do not have an ISO creator, you can find ISO recorder by
Alex Feinman here:
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
Hmm' looked up isorecorder + majorgeeks - someone had an issue with it - I never have - have used it on at least 4 computers.
Best of Luck -
Chronk

 

I'm not TimW, but I will try to answer the question - to some degree.
If you have access to a desktop computer, and its power supply can handle it, and it has a hard drive cable that has connectors for a second drive - assuming EIDE 40 pin connector - you can set the jumpers on your hard drive - as usually CS (cable select).
Your drive should have a jumper guide printed on a label - on the drive itself. This is usually easy, and would be dependent on how the drive on the Host computer is set up.
It should be set up as CS, or Master, and yours would be set up as CS, or slave. But assuming CS on both, it should be easy. Otherwise you can take note of jumper settings of both drives and make sure you leave them as you found them.
If they are SATA drives - you would have to find a second sata connection on the MotherBoard, connect it - I have never done this - you may have to enable the second drive in the BIOS.

 

Good link with pictures TimW - I like pictures - sometimes makes it much easier to follow - especially for visual people. I am kind of both visual and word/text based. But pictures do help. I like one of the replies to that post, about aquiring a usb chassis, that converts hard drives to USB. Some of those chassis converts EIDE and SATA to USB. But we cannot all afford all of the cool Geeky Tools!

 

I was mistaken about Avira AntiMalware - That program runs from an executable through Windows - supports up to Windows XP.

They make a Rescue CD, that when you download it and open it, it automatically creates a bootable ISO CD, which scans your computer for Viruses.
Link to Rescue CD.
http://www.free-av.com/en/tools/12/avira_antivir_rescue_system.html

A small amount of information on it here:
http://techblog.avira.com/?s=rescue+cd

 

Thanks for the replies, guys.

I forgot to mention, though, that we're talking about a laptop hard drive here. Is it possible to slave a laptop drive? I did a quick search on Newegg and found cases for 2.5" drives that seem to turn the drive into an external USB drive. Would this work, too, if I'm just trying to get the data off the drive?

Thanks again.