blue screen of death

[Ranmafan]

hi, i recently got this dreaded virus, now i am not a hacker. i know how to use computers, that is all. However, this won't let me start up my laptop (obviously im on a different computer now), it wont even let me get to the safe mode. Whenever i turn it on it goes to the black screen that lets me choose safe mode, last known good configuration, start normally, etc. I have tried all three of these and the blue screen comes up. the question i have is that since i dont have backups of the programs on my computer, is there anyway to fix this without reformatting it? i would hate to lose all the songs i have downloaded.

[Puppet Master]

I hate to tell you but I really doubt it I think your fucked.

[Zagatto]

The best way to save your files is to take your hard drive out and plug it into another computer. From there you can run a number of virus scans on your drive and fix it and quite likely retrieve the files you want to keep.

There are a number of computer shops set up to do this for people if you don't have the equipment to do it yourself.

Good luck.

[Vicious]

Do what Zaggy said. All you need to do is to buy like a $20 HD caddy. It lets you plug your hard drive into it and then connect it to another computer via USB. Of course, if it's a Desktop HD, you could always just slave it and plug it into another desktop without the caddy.

[desfunk]

Being a laptop, it's a lot harder to work with. But the plugging the HD into another computer usually works (just make sure the computer doesn't try booting from it)

I never knew those caddy things existed (i'm sure they did, but not owning a laptop, i've never really looked into anything like that). But that would be great as well.

Normally whenever a virus at home cripples someones system (it's always someone else in the house, never MY computer :p ). I usually just take their drive and clean it up through another system.

Another interesting tid-bit. Sometimes the bluescreen of death is caused by OTHER things (ram, dead components, dying components, etc). Though having a virus points in the direction of windows just getting messed up.

[Master ArNab]

ok , try the simpler stuff first

1- try to boot from the windows XP CD and do a SFC command (System File Check) to scan the HD to see whether there are corrupted system files or bad sectors if any

you'll find step-by-step guides with snaps and all , just google them or search in computing.net

2- use them bootable CDs
(eg, Hiren's BootCD or FIRE , or even Knoppix STD or any other live CD, they are very simple and can access your HD without running XP)
and fire up the tools and it'll probably give you an indication on what's the cause and salvage your files or scan the HD to do repairs


3- try to access the HD as slave ( you might consider this the simplest but i'm too lazy to open the laptop :p )

4- search computing.net with different key words , you'll find other solutions

5- take to a shop and let them do it for you


hmmm i think that's all i know .. good luck & hope it works out :]


Refs
FIRE is free .. http://fire.dmzs.com/?section=faq

knoppix is free too , i liked STD and still play with it from time to time
http://www.knoppix-std.org/

[Vicious]

Sorry, I must have missed it the first time when you said it was a laptop. At work I mostly work on Dell's and IBM's and those HDs are pretty easy to remove. It's one screw and they pull out. I know the Sony's can be a bitch. I'd still recommend buying a caddy for like $20 and hooking it up via USB to another computer. At worst, at least you can pull off any data files you may need before you have to rebuild the original HD.

Here's just a few that I found when I did a search on Newegg.com:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817145329
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817146035
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6817145136

[Schultz]

This is where i think Apple has it right with all there MAC lines. All there Notebooks and Desktops when you boot it you can hold i belive "F" when it gets to the BIOS it will put it into an external mode basically mean hook your Firewire cable up to another computer and it treats the whole laptop as a external harddrive. Very handy for restore.

NOTE: This is not a PC vs MAC post. I use PC's i just think this *feature* would be very welcomed in PC Motherboards and BIOS's.. So you wouldn't have to get caddies etc etc. and makes pulling from harddrives very easy.

But back to thread..

Do what most everyone has already suggested.

[israfel]

With my experience with the blue screen of death, it is usually one of three things. Processor, memory or hdd. if you are able to see what the error is on the blue screen, google search it and you should be able to figure out what is causeing the error. also when you try to boot into safe mode see what file it hangs up on and google search that your computer is hanging up on such and such file. for example mup.sys is usually the hdd. If you want to get access to your hdd try using Bart Pe Builder. it allows you to access your hdd threw a bootable windows cd or dvd rom. you can google search it or check out this site. http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4007.html i have used it on numerous occasions.