Hi,

Im currently at work using this computer to try and find out what to do with my computer at home, i think this might be a bit of a long read but any help is much appreciated.

I was using a program last week to download music (im not sure if im allowed to mention what program it is or not lol). Anyway i left it for 20 mins of so and went back to my computer, when i got back I found my homepage had been changed to a search engine and the background picture of my desktop said something along the lines of 'an error has occured in IE, please use a spyware or anti-virus program to locate the problem', well i did this all day on Sunday, used Adaware, Spybot, Hijack... plus Sophos and Norton Anti-virus programs but nothing was shifting it. It was getting late so i put my computer off and went to bed. When i switched it on on Monday to work on it more.... biiiig problems.
The desktop wasnt showing, it was now just that 'Blue Screen of Death' with the same error message that i wrote above.

So i tried to log in in Safe Mode (i forgot to mention i was able to do this on Sunday too) but in that mode now its just a Black Screen, i can see the cursor but the only thing i can use in either Normal or Safe Mode is ctrl+alt+del to get the Task Manager up to shut down.

Ive heard people have had the blue screen before, but i have never heard of the black screen in safe mode.... im hoping someone here has.

I havent tried to do anything with the computer since, i do know a little about computers but nothing about the bios or inside things like that so i thought i better get some advice from people who have maybe solved a problem like this.

It is Windows XP Proffesional im using.

Everytime ive booted up in Safe Mode in the past it has let me see the icons on the desktop, thats why i mentioned that this time it just sort of 'hangs' in the black screen with Safe Mode in each corner.

I have two different drives in my computer, a C: and an F:. I put the F: drive in myself a few months ago to have more memory.
Do you think that it is just the C: drive that is filled with these viruses or will it be both?

Im only asking because the C: drive, i can probably live with being re-formatted as i have all my programs on cd's, or most of them at least. F: drive is where i keep all my music, including cd's ive copied onto the computer from some friends and they're the only copies i have so id be more mad with myself if i've lost both of the drives.
Is there a way i can check that the F: drive still works while its in this state?

Thanks for any advice or info in advance,
Chris

If the second hard drive F has been set up with NTFS filing system and Windows won't boot, you will have to install the drive as a slave on a working XP system to view it's contents. If, however, F drive is using the FAT filing system, you could boot up your PC with a startup floppy that contains the standard DOS commands, then use DIR command on the secondary drive to view the contents, bearing in mind that DOS will display any long filenames (longer than 8.3) in truncated form. But at least you'll know what's on it. In my experience, viruses and other malware only infest the partition on which Windows is installed, unless you were to manually move or copy or install an infected file to a different partition yourself. I am pretty certain the data on the second drive will be fully intact. My C drive has had virus infections several times but it's never affected other drives or partitions.

First off as pip22 says your problems are most likely limited to your C:

Also from the task manager you can try to run most things. Click on File then New Task (run)... .
This functions just like Run from the Start Menu. You can view Disk Manager by typing: diskmgmt.msc

Also you can do a Repair Install that will retain your programs & settings. Many details in this link:

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Hi there,

Thanks for the replies, unfortunately i didnt see them until today as i couldnt check my internet at home. It turns out everything was still on my F: drive, although it shifted itself to D: after i reformatted the C: and i almost had a heart attack when i saw F: was now my cd burner, lol.

Anyway i just reformatted the whole C: and im gradually getting everything back on, a little annoyed at all the things ive lost, but first thing i did after reinstalling the internet was go to Norton's website to buy Internet Security 2005 so hopefully that wont happen to me again.

Lesson learned, back up my files next time

Chris

Thanks for the update. Let us know if we can help further in the future!

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