Windows XP home edition

Caitlin_Bree

Hi everyone,
Having virus/malware etc checked my neighbours PC since they were scammed, it is still having problems. My intention was to reformat. Unfortunately, they no longer have the Windows XP Home installation disc.

The product key for this is attached to the computer and I'm aware that if I have another disc, I can use that to reinstall.. Annoyingly, I am using XP Pro and everyone else I know seems to have Dell XP Home installation discs which say they can't be used on anything but a Dell.

I believe I've run out of options.. Does anyone have any ideas that won't require spending £30+ on an OS that's only going to be supported for a year?
I hate the idea that they'll have to pay for multiple other people's greed..

They're like (my) grandparents and I'd really like to fix it for them as their children/grandchildren are on the other side of the world and this is their connection to them...
If nothing else is viable, would anyone have a cd I could borrow or they no longer need/use? .. I know it's really cheeky to ask and I wouldn't ask for myself, but they really are lovely and I hate that someone's done this to them.

closed

your last thread pointed to a problem with a cmos battery, unconnected to anything a call centre could have done. An antivirus boot cd scan should ensure there are no lingering infections, which are probably unrelated to the scam.

what are the problems.

NiftyDigits

Caitlin_Bree wrote: »

Hi everyone,
Having virus/malware etc checked my neighbours PC since they were scammed, it is still having problems. My intention was to reformat. Unfortunately, they no longer have the Windows XP Home installation disc.

The product key for this is attached to the computer and I'm aware that if I have another disc, I can use that to reinstall.. Annoyingly, I am using XP Pro and everyone else I know seems to have Dell XP Home installation discs which say they can't be used on anything but a Dell.

I believe I've run out of options.. Does anyone have any ideas that won't require spending £30+ on an OS that's only going to be supported for a year?
I hate the idea that they'll have to pay for multiple other people's greed..

They're like (my) grandparents and I'd really like to fix it for them as their children/grandchildren are on the other side of the world and this is their connection to them...
If nothing else is viable, would anyone have a cd I could borrow or they no longer need/use? .. I know it's really cheeky to ask and I wouldn't ask for myself, but they really are lovely and I hate that someone's done this to them.

What brand name and model the PC?

harleq1962

ive seen xp installed from dell discs, if put in a dell it dosent ask for a serial, but is used in another pc it asks for registration

flashg67

Google 'windows xp iso download' or similar, download the iso file, then burn to a cd?

Some will say this is illegal - I can't confirm that, and watch for viruses. I do actually have a copy of XP that's an OEM edition, so will load on any PC, but you will likely be missing some drivers which you'll have to get from the PC makers or the chip-manufacturers website.

Also, as above, try the Dell disc - it should work, but again, you will be missing some drivers, as the Dell one will have specific Dell drivers incorporated into the install

NiftyDigits

Still waiting for the info from the OP....

Caitlin_Bree

This is the error message I get on start-up.http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=fogeh5&s=5 The reason I thought it might have been something to do with the CMOS is that in the event viewer the date had been changed to 01/01/2002 at the point where the system had been altered by the people that had remote access and infected it.

Trojans and viruses were found when I first scanned and after removing with malware bytes, the trojan was reinstalling (some kind of restore point re-infection?) on start-up repeatedly.

I'd read that some of these problems might have been something to do with changes made to CMOS by a virus or trojan, and thought that maybe the PC was unable to restore to a previous setting as it had been corrupted in some way.
All of the restore points on their PC were unusable.

Incidentally (or not) the calendar has been keeping the correct date since it's been changed back to the right one, which I believe shouldn't happen if the CMOS battery is dead.

The last time I scanned I found other issues.. Trace.Registry.Searchit and Rogue.Win32.SystemProtection, and removed those too. The CMOS message is still appearing at start-up and the PC is now working at a crawl which is why I was going to reformat. I am able to access the net, everything's just really slow.
Will try again with the anti-virus boot cd scan and see if anything turns up.

(It's a fujitsu siemens scaleo p)

closed

I doubt very much that anything they did, did anything to the cmos, they want cash by pretending that event viewer errors are infections, not to infect.

the internal hd/cd wiring looks odd for an oldish machine, is the hard disk sata (older machines use pata)

it's either the battery on it's way out, or corrupt cmos settings, which can be set to defaults

post a hijackthis log and commit charge, it has little memory (512MB), which may be why it's slow - see speedup sticky.

NiftyDigits

See your PM inbox.

Have you set the BIOS to standard defaults?

waddler_8

The malware & CMOS problems are totally unrelated.

Scanners may pick up leftover malware traces, but unless they have the ability to execute & enter memory, they're not doing anything harmful.

Post some kind of diagnostic log - be it HijackThis as above, or DDS

That way we have a better chance of seeing if there's anything that can actually have an effect on the machine rather than running scan after scan that may or may not pick up on something.

Caitlin_Bree

The infection that was detected (in previous posts) was rogue windows system protection, this is a fake security software used for the purpose of convincing someone that there is something wrong with thie machine. The microsoft website says this:
What does rogue security software do?

Rogue security software might report a virus, even though your computer is actually clean. The software might also fail to report viruses when your computer is infected. Inversely, sometimes, when you download rogue security software, it will install a virus or other malicious software on your computer so that the software has something to detect.

There were no problems with the PC before this happened, it was old, but it was working fine and not this slow.