Blue screen / Black Screem on start up

[clemkonan]

I have a Duron 900 with 128 megs of Ram it has been a good provider for the past 4 years despite having limited RAM. I downloaded some Spyware software recently and may have deleted some files that should have been retained.

When I boot up I get the Windows logo and that nice fuzzy feeling but my hopes are quickly dashed since the system goes to safe mode.
In safe mode I get a blue screen error mesage that windows cannot detect and install my devices in safe mode and that I should start up again and not choose safe mode.

I went into CMOS and made the first device CD Rom and second floppy then used my ME Start up disk to run Scanredg /fix. This part went well and I got confirmation that my registry was fixed.

When I try to boot up again however I still cannot get past the ME logo before I am back to safe mode.

How can I fix this problem, I need to get at some very important data.

Going to device manager in safe mode does not show much, I cannot see any yellow flags and properties yields no information

Sincere thanks

[Strider]

Hi ClemKonan,
Did your spyware program make a backup of the files it deleted? Can you restore them in Safe Mode?
If not, I'd try a repair reinstall of Windows since restoring the registry didn't work. If you can lay your hot little hands on a ME install CD you can install it over the top of itself and it'll preserve your data and you'll not have to reinstall your apps. You can also search around on your hard drive for Windows setup files. Sometimes they're stashed in C:\Windows\Options\Install. Easiest way to find out is search for *.cab. If you find a whole bunch of them (20 or so, IIRC) there should also be a setup.exe file in the same directory.
BTW, your data is still where you left it. You can access them from Safe Mode or a boot floppy and copy them to floppies, at least, depending on how much data, how many floppies you have, and how much patience :D
HTH. Luck,

[clemkonan]

I got a solution that worked. On boot up in safe mode I chose to boot with a boot log meaning that each programme in start up is identified and I can permit it to run or cancel it. I cancelled two files recognizes as being with AVG antivirus and one file related to Norton antivirus.

After that I was able to get a normal start up. I immediately downloaded Ad Aware Se , Spybot Search and Destroy and an antivirus software. I found at least 4 trojans. I them loaded something called CW shredder ( I think I got that right) and found one more problem.

Thanks for the help now how can I develop a backup strategy , can I partition an existing drive so that part of the drive serves as a backup?

[Strider]

Clemkonan,
Good you're back in business :D
If you were running two antivirus programs at the same time (AVG and Norton) they may have conflicted with each other and caused some of your problems.
Yes, you can partition your hard drive and use another virtual drive as a backup. I use Partition Magic. It's quite painless to create a partition without losing your data, but it's pricey. IIRC, I've seen references to free or demo partitioning tools somewhere here at CTH.
A better solution, if you have another physical drive or can afford one, is a separate drive to back up your essential files. That way, if your 'main' drive dies, your data are still available. The wisdom from 20 years ago is still valid: The question is not 'Will my hard drive die?' It is 'When will my hard drive die?'