Dell computer had virus, can't boot off any drive cd

[HJM1234]

Someone at work had a lot of virus's on his Dell computer. He asked me to fix it. I delete them, however the OS was messed up. I tried to reinstall the OS from the CD, got a NTLDR error. Tried to boot of off the A drive, does not boot. If I boot to windows XP off of the hard drive, the A drive and both CD drives are present in My Computer. (The Hard drive is a SATA drive).

What I though was an easy problem of reinstalling the OS is turning into a nightmare. I was going to install the OS on a new drive, and with the other drive slowly install everything from it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.

 

[SimonDavies]

First of all is the cd device set to be bootable in the BIOS? Secondly are you using bootable media? (ie an original disk)? finally is your sata drive set for AHCI or IDE (Compatible) modes?

I think that chances are it will be one of those that's causing you the issue.

Simon

The real world is not about exam scores, it's about ability.

 

[gbaughma]

I agree with SimonDavies.

A virus won't keep your computer from booting off of the CD (or other bootable device), since the virus hasn't loaded.

The virus MAY keep you from seeing the C: drive partitions; best to repartition if you're going to reinstall.

If you are using a SATA hard drive, you may need to set it for AHCI or IDE mode in the BIOS (as said once again by SimonDavies).



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[wahnula]

Your new disk drive should be visible in BIOS when the PC POSTs, is this the case? Whether it's with or without the XP drive it should be visible in the BIOS. If so, disconnect the XP drive. Boot order should be CD-ROM, Hard Disk, then whatever else.

If the new drive is not visible (and it's SATA) check Simon's advice above. If it's IDE make sure that it is set up as a boot drive when loading XP from a CD and that it's jumpered correctly.

Also, some PCs, especially older ones, require SATA RAID drivers at the F6 prompt early in the XP install process. Check the factory CD and look for a "makedisk" or similar folder. This will help place the SATA RAID drivers on a floppy disk (remember those?) to install during OS loading. I have a first-gen Asus SATA board with this "feature". And, before you load the OS, you need to create a one-disk "array" in RAID BIOS. Really. Same with adding hard disks. This should be apparent in current POST before booting to XP, but, well, Dell...

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[BadBigBen]

You could also be getting that error if you have a USB Flash stick or USB HDD etc. attached...

have a read:

Error message when you start your computer with a non-system disk


Err Msg: Boot - Can't Find NTLDR, or Windows Could Not Start..


"NTLDR is missing" error message when you install or upgrade Windows XP over Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Millennium Edition


An NTLDR or NTDETECT.COM Not Found Error





Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[HJM1234]

I rechecked the BIOS, both cd are not found. I do not know if the IDE circuit is gone. I tried different cables and different drives. The drives and the cable work in different machines, just not in this one. I tried a PCI card, it did not work or drivers were not installed. I do know that the IDE did work at least for awhile, but now both channels show no drives found.

I took out the BIOS battery for about 5 minutes, still no luck. Before I got the unit, the person upgraded the BIOS from A10 to A12. I did not try to get the BIOS back to A10.

Thanks for everyones help, but right now I still can't boot and I don't know if its a virus or a bad IDE circuit. The guy when he gave me the computer to work on it said that it had a BIOS virus. However, everything that I read said that this probably was not a problem on a XP machine.

 

[BadBigBen]

Before I got the unit, the person upgraded the BIOS from A10 to A12. I did not try to get the BIOS back to A10

I would reflash the BIOS back to A10, but before you do that check the BIOS settings, e.g. to see if the onboard IDE channels are turned off (Disabled) or on (Enabled)...

for a PCI IDE card to work, it needs to be enabled in the BIOS to BOOT, setting is called something along the lines of INTERUPT 19 CAPTURE, and it needs to be bootable (I've seen IDE cards that did not allow booting off of them)...



Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.

 

[HJM1234]

I checked everything very carefully today. Everything look okay, I tried to boot and failed several times and then I got this error : previous attempts at booting this system have failed at checkpoint [Oops]"

So right now, this is where I am at. I was trying to find the site that shows how you can install windows XP from the hard drive. You partition the harddrive and then install the CD to D, boot up (the C drive is the only drives that boots for me) and then install it from the D drive. I just can't find that article!

Thanks for all of the help.

 

[BadBigBen]

here it is, and it only took ONE google search string:

Windows XP: Installing from Harddrive

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/578/windows-xp-installing-from-harddrive/

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.