help.. netbook got a virus and wont even boot up

skintmumof3

my daughter got the AV security virus on her toshiba netbook and it just wont boot up at all.
it will power up and when i press F8 to get to safemode it shows the list safemode, safemode with network etc and will allow me click on it but then it goes off into a perpetual loop of not booting up, switching itself off, restarting and presenting me with the safemode list again.
Is it dead and terminal or is there anything i can do. Its OP system is windows XP of which i have cd of. I had thought about buying an external dvd drive to try and see if i can reformatt it or is this a waste of money.
i really need some advice to see if i can fix this before i have purchase a another laptop for my daughter..
many thanks in advance
skint
xx

totalsolutions

There are hidden system files that need to be present before windows even starts to load. These files may be corrupt or missing. Can you boot up from a restore cd copied to a USB stick?

fwor

I guess from what you say that it doesn't have a CD or DVD drive?

Yes - probably the easiest solution would be to borrow or buy an external CD/DVD drive, boot up from the XP install CD and do a "Repair install", which should mean that it will boot up and will leave the user files in place.

However, you will probably have to re-install the system device drivers (downloaded from the manufacturers website) and this may not get rid of all traces of the virus (some can even survive a HDD re-format!).

There are also other ways to re-install from a pendrive, but they tend to be more complicated.

turbobob

Virus's don't normally cause any damage to a computer so you don't have to go out and buy a new one because it's got a virus. Check your manual and there should be a section for recovering the hard drive to factory settings. They normally have a recovery partition on them. E.g. here is the manual for a Toshiba NB200, and page 47 onwards describes how to do it on that model - http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/manuals/userguides/su2346766/GMAD00199011_NB200_Series_09May01.pdf

tronator

fwor wrote: »

There are also other ways to re-install from a pendrive, but they tend to be more complicated.

Doesn't look too complicated to me ;-)

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-create-bootable-windows-7-usb-to-install-windows-7-from-usb-flash-drive-using-windows-7-dvdusb-tool/

fwor

tronator wrote: »

Doesn't look too complicated to me ;-)

http://www.intowindows.com/how-to-create-bootable-windows-7-usb-to-install-windows-7-from-usb-flash-drive-using-windows-7-dvdusb-tool/

Will that work with XP?

Several times in the past I've looked into installing XP from a pendrive, and at the time it always involved downloading something from a random website that I'd never heard of before. I concluded (perhaps wrongly) that the risk of getting something you didn't want with it was too high...

Donnie

No, it won't. It only works with Windows Starter Edition.

closed

If it has a standard hard disk inside, it may have a factory restore partition, which means you don't need a disc to reinstall windows, you press a key on boot, and 10 minutes later it's like it was when it left the factory, read or download the manual to check.

Where you go from here depends on whether you need to recover any data or not, reinstalling windows will wipe it.

skintmumof3

turbobob wrote: »

Virus's don't normally cause any damage to a computer so you don't have to go out and buy a new one because it's got a virus. Check your manual and there should be a section for recovering the hard drive to factory settings. They normally have a recovery partition on them. E.g. here is the manual for a Toshiba NB200, and page 47 onwards describes how to do it on that model - http://cdgenp01.csd.toshiba.com/content/support/manuals/userguides/su2346766/GMAD00199011_NB200_Series_09May01.pdf

hi,
its asking me for a hdd built in pasword. but i have never set one up. have you any ideas please.
but thanks for the above info, at least its another path to take.
cheers
skint
x

skintmumof3

its about 17 months old thanks

Donnie

That's a shame. Anyway, if you haven't set a password, just hit Enter without entering a password.