XP Home - Login OK - Hangup

[Jerry Bryant]

I login to my account, the desktop appears with all the
icons, but I can't do anything. The only application I can
launch is Task Manager. I move my cursor down to the
lower "toolbar???" and the hour glass appears. Task
Manager reports 100% CPU usage even though no applications
are running. I am pretty sure its a virus of some kind. I
just need to copy a few files off my hard drive? I cannot
seem to figure out a way to do this? I can't boot to
ODS "C:". I can't run Explorere. I have tried Install Disk
Recover and that didn't work. What can I do to get to
these files? Thanks in advance.

[Malke]

Jerry Bryant wrote:

> I login to my account, the desktop appears with all the
> icons, but I can't do anything. The only application I can
> launch is Task Manager. I move my cursor down to the
> lower "toolbar???" and the hour glass appears. Task
> Manager reports 100% CPU usage even though no applications
> are running. I am pretty sure its a virus of some kind. I
> just need to copy a few files off my hard drive? I cannot
> seem to figure out a way to do this? I can't boot to
> ODS "C:". I can't run Explorere. I have tried Install Disk
> Recover and that didn't work. What can I do to get to
> these files? Thanks in advance.

Hi, Jerry. Why are you so sure you have a virus? Did you not have an
antivirus program running? This failure could be caused by things other
than a virus. If you can't boot into either Safe Mode or Last Known
Good Configuration, and you have already tried a Repair Installation,
then the only thing to do is format the drive and reinstall Windows.
The easiest way to get data off the hard drive is to slave the drive in
a different machine. Otherwise, you will need a utility like NTFS
Driver from: http://www.cgsecurity.org/ - The .zip version is for
Windows. If your data is small enough, you'll be able to copy the files
onto a floppy. Be sure to scan those files for a virus *before* you
copy them back onto your newly installed system!

HTH,

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

[purplehaz]

When you open task manager, look under the processes tab and see what, if
any, process is consuming all the cpu's. If you find it, end it, then
unistall or try to fix it.

Jerry Bryant wrote:
> I login to my account, the desktop appears with all the
> icons, but I can't do anything. The only application I can
> launch is Task Manager. I move my cursor down to the
> lower "toolbar???" and the hour glass appears. Task
> Manager reports 100% CPU usage even though no applications
> are running. I am pretty sure its a virus of some kind. I
> just need to copy a few files off my hard drive? I cannot
> seem to figure out a way to do this? I can't boot to
> ODS "C:". I can't run Explorere. I have tried Install Disk
> Recover and that didn't work. What can I do to get to
> these files? Thanks in advance.

[Jerry]

"When you open task manager, look under the processes tab
and see what, if any, process is consuming all the cpu's.
If you find it, end it, then unistall or try to fix it."

Thats whats weird, it shows nothing consuming all the
CPU..A few Svchosts are runnning, but not consumming
alot..Hardly any other processes are running. Can't stop
the svchost processes (it says that they are System
Critcal Cnnot stop)..

[Malke]

Jerry wrote:

> "Hi, Jerry. Why are you so sure you have a virus? Did you
> not have an antivirus program running?"......Believe it or
> not, I do not have a virus program running. MY daughter
> goes on AOL Chat sites all the time, so I figure there
> probably is a virus. I will try Safe Mode to see if I can
> copy the required files to floppy, then re-install a fresh
> copy of XP...I had Norton when I bought the computer
> (about 5 years ago) but lost it when I purchased XP. I
> will definately go get another virus program. Any
> suggestions on which one to get? Thanks

I've always had good luck with Norton Antivirus, but this is so
subjective. Other people prefer Mcafee or TrendMicro's product. On my
Windows boxen, I run F-Prot, but it requires a bit more interaction
from the user than NAV. Do some Googling for reviews, but in my opinion
you just can't run a Windows system that is connected to the Internet
without an antivirus program. If you can get into Safe Mode, try
scanning with a standalone antivirus like Stinger. Get it here:
http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ . If you buy NAV 2004, you could also
try booting with the cd and see if that cleans up the problem. Also, if
you can get into Safe Mode, you may be able to install spyware removal
tools and scan for spyware, too. Remove spyware with Spybot Search &
Destroy from www.security.kolla.de and Ad-aware from
www.lavasoftusa.com. Be sure to update these programs before running
them. You can update the programs on a different machine and save the
updated reference files on cd.

Post back if you need more help.

Good luck,

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

[purplehaz]

If your sure your virus clean try a repair install of xp.

Jerry wrote:
> "When you open task manager, look under the processes tab
> and see what, if any, process is consuming all the cpu's.
> If you find it, end it, then unistall or try to fix it."
>
> Thats whats weird, it shows nothing consuming all the
> CPU..A few Svchosts are runnning, but not consumming
> alot..Hardly any other processes are running. Can't stop
> the svchost processes (it says that they are System
> Critcal Cnnot stop)..