I am having issues with a neighbors laptop and she doesn't want a reformat. She has a laptop w/Vista and she updated her office 2007 and found that everytime she opened a word document, the document came out garbled, shortly after that her Macafee wouldn't start and the system wouldn't allow another antivirus to run. I suspected malware/virus so I took out her hdd and did a scan with AVG from my pc. It found a virus and removed it. However, after replacing the hdd, the system would hang at the welcome screen and , even though the batter is only 2 years old, it starts with a message that the system doesn't recognize the battery. It does, however chrge with no problems. I suspect that the virus corrupted random files, including the dell support app in her laptop. The app doesn't open. Is there a way to replace corrupted files without reformatting?
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many corrupted files
- Thread starter rjizzo
- Start date
rclarke250
Technical User
well, if you have removed the virus, then you could try doing a repair install of vista if you have the os disk. You would still have to reinstall the progs that got corrupted in the first place. As for the word documents, nothing I know except replacing with a backup. To be honest if it has a lot of damage to unknown files, she is better off, having you pull as much data from the drive to see what can be saved, and to do the reformat and lay down a fresh install.
I see lots of recommendations here for programs like -
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
SuperAntispyware
Try Safe Mode (Do you have this problem in Safe Mode?).
Try running ChkDsk to check your drive for errors. Right-click your Drive icon/ Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking. Try it first by not checking either box (this will run it in a Read-only mode) to see if it flags any hard drive or file problems. If it does, restart it by ticking both boxes, and rerun it to allow it to attempt to fix any found problems.
Try the System File Checker.
How to repair the operating system and how to restore the operating system configuration to an earlier point in time in Windows Vista or Win 7.
See how many unsigned drivers you have running on your machine. This article will guide you on the instructions but all you have to do is type sigverif in Start Run.
How to identify unsigned drivers using sigverif utility in Windows Vista
Create another user and see if they have the same problem as your current user.
Diagnose and repair crashing Office programs by using Office Diagnostics
Work with Office safe modes
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
SuperAntispyware
Try Safe Mode (Do you have this problem in Safe Mode?).
Try running ChkDsk to check your drive for errors. Right-click your Drive icon/ Properties/ Tools/ Error Checking. Try it first by not checking either box (this will run it in a Read-only mode) to see if it flags any hard drive or file problems. If it does, restart it by ticking both boxes, and rerun it to allow it to attempt to fix any found problems.
Try the System File Checker.
How to repair the operating system and how to restore the operating system configuration to an earlier point in time in Windows Vista or Win 7.
See how many unsigned drivers you have running on your machine. This article will guide you on the instructions but all you have to do is type sigverif in Start Run.
How to identify unsigned drivers using sigverif utility in Windows Vista
Create another user and see if they have the same problem as your current user.
Diagnose and repair crashing Office programs by using Office Diagnostics
Work with Office safe modes
#1 simplest option, and I think the best option especially on this one is basically same as rclarke250 suggested - back the data up, wipe the drive, and reinstall.
1. Back whatever data up you can
2. May not hurt to create an image of her hosed system.
3. Wipe the drive using DBAN (Darik's boot and nuke) or Active KillDisk
4. Reinstall Windows, get it up to date..
5. Install Security software - unless she absolutely refuses, then go with something besdies McAfee. Go with Microsoft Security Essentials, probably the best for a nontechnical user, and one of the best anyway, and it's 100% free.. Comodo Interenet Security for firewall if she wants to keep that stuff from coming back... or Online Armor if 32 bit Windows (for now) if you prefer - both are excellent.
6. THEN reinstall Office, etc...
7. Create an image of the new setup, in case some virus file snuck into her data files...
8. Then restore what is restorable, and then look into trying to play with the corruption of specific files.
Oftentimes, nobody wants to reinstall, but unless she's willing AND YOU'RE WILLING to put in hours upon hours upon hours of troubleshooting and testing (still to possibly need a reinstall), you're best doing that now.
Here are the apps I'd recommend for cleanup if you absolutely have to do that instead:
1. Malwarebytes Antimalware
2. SuperAntiSpyware
3. Mwav is a good one to use (not mwave.com) to find stuff, and then manually remove..
4. DrWeb CureIt
5. If you can get the DrWeb CureIt LiveCD to run on that machine, then you may get some good results there.
6. CCleaner to help fix/sort out the leftover manglement
7. Glary Utilities to go behind CCleaner
8. Advanced System Care to go behind all of them, and it'll do a defrag as well, unless you tell it not to...
9. And/Or if you want possibly the best defrag, also throw in Auslogics Disk Defrag.
all those available at
Also, it wouldn't hurt to run an online scan, such as at:
And there are many other online scanners available as well.
Another tool you might want to look at for general testing/scanning: - it's an all in one type of disk that has lots of utilities. That battery message may not be b/c of system files, it could be something got messed up in the mean time. It does happen.
Another way to verify between hardware/software errors:
1. Pull out the hard drive
2. Boot the system with a bootable OS, such as a LiveCD version of a Linux Distro - Ubuntu is usually a good choice - be aware, the latest version is a little slow loading up initially, but once loaded, seems to run really quickly.
but I'd seriously advise her as to the time it's going to take, and as I said determine - is spending MUCH of your own personal time worth it to you.
1. Back whatever data up you can
2. May not hurt to create an image of her hosed system.
3. Wipe the drive using DBAN (Darik's boot and nuke) or Active KillDisk
4. Reinstall Windows, get it up to date..
5. Install Security software - unless she absolutely refuses, then go with something besdies McAfee. Go with Microsoft Security Essentials, probably the best for a nontechnical user, and one of the best anyway, and it's 100% free.. Comodo Interenet Security for firewall if she wants to keep that stuff from coming back... or Online Armor if 32 bit Windows (for now) if you prefer - both are excellent.
6. THEN reinstall Office, etc...
7. Create an image of the new setup, in case some virus file snuck into her data files...
8. Then restore what is restorable, and then look into trying to play with the corruption of specific files.
Oftentimes, nobody wants to reinstall, but unless she's willing AND YOU'RE WILLING to put in hours upon hours upon hours of troubleshooting and testing (still to possibly need a reinstall), you're best doing that now.
Here are the apps I'd recommend for cleanup if you absolutely have to do that instead:
1. Malwarebytes Antimalware
2. SuperAntiSpyware
3. Mwav is a good one to use (not mwave.com) to find stuff, and then manually remove..
4. DrWeb CureIt
5. If you can get the DrWeb CureIt LiveCD to run on that machine, then you may get some good results there.
6. CCleaner to help fix/sort out the leftover manglement
7. Glary Utilities to go behind CCleaner
8. Advanced System Care to go behind all of them, and it'll do a defrag as well, unless you tell it not to...
9. And/Or if you want possibly the best defrag, also throw in Auslogics Disk Defrag.
all those available at
Also, it wouldn't hurt to run an online scan, such as at:
And there are many other online scanners available as well.
Another tool you might want to look at for general testing/scanning: - it's an all in one type of disk that has lots of utilities. That battery message may not be b/c of system files, it could be something got messed up in the mean time. It does happen.
Another way to verify between hardware/software errors:
1. Pull out the hard drive
2. Boot the system with a bootable OS, such as a LiveCD version of a Linux Distro - Ubuntu is usually a good choice - be aware, the latest version is a little slow loading up initially, but once loaded, seems to run really quickly.
but I'd seriously advise her as to the time it's going to take, and as I said determine - is spending MUCH of your own personal time worth it to you.
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