Attempting to repair xp

[marmeduke]

I was hit with a nasty virus a few days ago which blanked out my desktop and won't allow access even in safe mode. I'm attempting to fix or recover by using knoppix. Yesterday i downloaded the latest version, 11/18 I believe and put it on a dvd. I have accessed it and am able to get online but what I need to do is to be able to accss my hard drive and edit the registry. I have found information on running regedit in a console window but I have yet to figure out how to open a console window. I have typed rededit, console, konsole, etc into thr run command window without success. All help is appreciated. I'm running xp.

[Harry Kuhman]

Don't edit the registery. Knoppix has no tools to edit a Windows registery, and assuming the partition is NTFS it is not safe to write to it with Knoppix. Instead back up whatever you need and don't have a good backup of, then reinstall from original media. When doing backups, I choose to transfer the files to another Windows box across the network by FTP, putting a free ftp server on the destination Windows system, but there are many ways to back up files depending on how much needs backed up.

[marmeduke]

thank you but I need to get into the registry. I will only look to backup files once I verify that the hard drives or computer is toast. I have not done so as of yet. My understanding is that it is possible to run regedit from knoppix?

[Harry Kuhman]

If you manage to write to that partition (not easy, as Knoppix will not do so by default), you risk destroying any data that you still have. I will not help in doing that.

[marmeduke]

My understanding is that this particular virus deposits two lines of information in the windows registry that disables task manager making it iimpossible to use windows. I need to get into the registry to delete those lines. I don't understand your relunctance to help? If this can't be done through knoppix, that is one thing but the information I have found indicates that it is possible? Without doing this my hard drive is useless.

Also, I have found and opened lxterminal...is this the access?

[Harry Kuhman]

...If this can't be done through knoppix, that is one thing but the information I have found indicates that it is possible? Without doing this my hard drive is useless....
Some people think that Knoppix can safely write to a NTFS partition. Maybe one of them posted the information that has you believing that you can safely write to NTFS. Years of experience on this forun has convinced me that this has never been safe and is still not, at least not with the default drivers in Knoppix. So I always advise against doing any operation that would write to NTFS, as this can make all data on the partition corrupt. And editing the registry is clearly a write to the NTFS partition.

Your hard drive is far from useless. It sounds like you can still read data from it. The safe way to proceed is still to recover that data that you want and then reinstall from original media, which no entry in the current registery will prevent.

This will be my last post on this matter here.

[chip.ling]

My understanding is that this particular virus deposits two lines of information in the windows registry that disables task manager making it iimpossible to use windows. I need to get into the registry to delete those lines. I don't understand your relunctance to help? If this can't be done through knoppix, that is one thing but the information I have found indicates that it is possible? Without doing this my hard drive is useless.

Also, I have found and opened lxterminal...is this the access?

Marmeduke,

If I were you, I will boot up knoppix, backup all my existing data I need. Then reinstall windows. Then perform a ghost disk copy.

However, you seem to want to go the hard way, here is a link you can refer to:

http://www.pcregedit.com/

This product claims it can boot up with a Linux live CD and fix the windows registry.

Be warned, I personally never use this software before and you use it on your own risk. And I am not responsible on any side effect it might has.

Good Luck and let us know if it works.

Rgds,
Chip

[laptopdragon]

i prefer Eterm.
just open a terminal window. ( like xterm), if thats what your asking.
you will have to mount that partition 1st btw.


btw.
why, o why would you want to get xp running again.
learn from mistakes

if (and i stress if, b/c it wont) this happened in gnu/linux, you could easily copy /home (and whatever else) and completely reinstall your distro....(and then, even leave /home alone, and not format that partition on a simple reinstall. (etc would need it tho)) .


i understand why people are reluctant to help. but don't let it stop you from self obliteration.

i have completely stopped supporting all of my friends "winblows" problems by 1 simple step.
when they call me for help, i say, "i can show you how to instlal linux" and thats it.
the few who have done this, have learned to fly, the others who stay in windows just cry and cry every other week about it. from youtube lags to issues your facing now (and will continue to deal with in a m.s. env).

so, here you are.
at the crossroads of a very problematic o.s. and know how to at least boot into a great one.
why not just make the change.

if you truly need windows, just use virtualbox or something.


you would NEED to have already backed up your registry before attempting this (unless you have a photographic memory of what it used to be valued at)
a shell (like python) or some script/ editor
possibly run wine, from linux, and open a windows program under its own power ?

but this should lead to failure.
1st, back up your stuff. (never say it enough, its the 1 standard that will save the day)


and sometimes, we have mechanical failures, such as HD's just breaking. we never know. so back it up frequently.

good luck.

[laptopdragon]

i replied with some links, but the spam blocker is preventing it from posting now.

so, wait a while...and they should arrive here...

[marmeduke]

I want to thank all who have replied...the help is greatly appreciated. Some great information, a bit of smugness that I can do without, but mostly a positive experience. To answer a question as to why would I want to repair XP - Very simply because I've been running Windows for many, many years now and I have many things integrated into it. Does this mean I will continue with it? Not really. I am new to the Linux world. I do like most of what I'm seeing and I suspect that the deficiencies are because of my inexperience. But before I move on I need to save my documents, photos, financial information, etc.

I'm at the point where I believe I may not be able to repair and am attempting to come up with a strategy for saving/moving what I can to a new hard drive. Can members speak to this but please realize that I am a newbie to Knoppix so not only may I not know how to open an xterm window but I probably also do not even know what it is.

[rusty]

This might be a better LiveCD for repairing your XP : http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

Good Luck.

[laptopdragon]

check out this link (http://software.informer.com/getfree-linux-fix-windows-reg/)and scroll down to the 2nd set of 10.

theres a few (free) apps you can use

i am empathetic to your plight, and would help more, however futile the objective is.


a terminal window is the very best way to interact with our gnu/linux environments to tell our pc's what we need done.


let me start here with a story of me.

got a job at Nintendo (yes, the one and only Nintendo, dream job) and i was asked to help on a xmass surge of temps.
well, they like me so much, that out of 200 people, they selected 8 to train for full time.

i got 5 days of classroom stuff, and then was tested.

i knew the stuff, but didn't know how to type. (the test was timed), i failed.

sadly, i knew i lost a great opportunity.
so, i worked 3 jobs, and bought my 1st pc.
500mhz proc, with 128Mb or RAM....i was so happy, literally the fastest pc within 400 miles.

i did 2 things that night.
installed windows 98, and RedHat 5.0 on a dual boot w/lilo.

after the boot up (w/help from some friends in college) i spent the 1st 3 weeks in linux telneting , and learning (and even running music remotely from a freinds pc on our network from thier pc doing al the work, and mine listening to it, while saving all my proc power to do other stuff...(he later complained so much that his pc was so slow since i got mine, i stopped..out of sympathy..lol

and when i booted into windows. i got ..to reboot...about 400 times.
i spent so much time rebooting windows (and that's not even counting the unplanned rebooting/ crashing) that i decided to just run linux.


i want to pause a moment here, to state, whatever os you choose, is fine, my point is, years ago, i had a clear choice that was easily made.
and if i have never met my friends who ran linux then, i would know a whole lot more about windows.

what i realized in my 1st year, is that windows keeps up repairing and re=fixing the fixes...and they just get worse.
in linux, we learn to repair or add our needs, and it just gets better.

the amount of time i spend learning linux is equal to the time i spent fixing windows.

i don't learn every day, i use it more often than learn.
and i have to use windows at work, and even went out and own xp, and vista, just to have those os's at home (however with vista, i was so disturbed that i completely removed it, and tried to sell it asap, but no-one ever called for it : (



on the other side of this token, linux aint perfect either.
i prefer it, but it doesn't work out great all the time, (just try and load a old agp video card w/out a wrapper) or wifi (back in the day).
linux is tough. but if you hang in there, it will bring smiles to your face when everything just works.

i have never been as frustrated in my life as when i was running Mi.soft os's, and also i have felt a great wave of serenity after seeing my linux pcs can run perfectly for 7 months straight, w/out every turning off, and the only time they do turn off is when there is a power outage.

now, these days, we can even recompile the kernel w/out rebooting. how crazy is that.


but heres my point.
try the links above. (at your own risk)
but 1st backup any/ all files.
you should be able to physically remove your HD and set it up in a temporary HD portable unit. and usb-plug it into a linux machine and simply mount it, and copy all of its contents. (file by file too, but i would recomend folder by folder)

then, after all is saved. try to get a 2nd pc for a hundred bucks or less.
run linux on it. and try to use it as much as possible.

the more you run in this env. the more you will grow (happier), and only time will give you experience with what to do.

i don't know a whole lot of coding, and i have gone through some dark times, but with this os, i have never been happier. (or content)

i almost puke every day i run windows at work. from the terrible focus settings to simple guis that are retarded and lacking in simple tasks left out)


every year i run linux, i gain knowledge exponentially.
every time i run windows , i lose precious time in my life (well, at least i get paid for it). (maybe i grow more patient too).


so, to summarize, i would suggest to ignore anyone who bugs ye, (like people who refuse to help), would you really want someone to help you w/out any desire for success ? )

and try other distros.
knoppix is great, but so are many others ( my fav is mandriva, but redhat was my 1st and always in my top 5)
i am using knoppix live cd/ b'c i can run it at work when no-one is the wiser of what im booting into. (when i can get away w/it) and my best linux system is.

kernel 2.6.27
running e16
this is not easy to get here, but its so worth it
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e152/idanity/e16withwindowsinpartitionsandbackgr.jpg

that is e16
a minimalist window manager, (prefer it over e17)
notice the center menu, is from my mouseclicks, and i can change backgrounds from a 1 click operation (ok, 2 clicks, 1 for the menu, 1 to select it).... and running gkrellm (since 1999) also a atho and proc meter (i really don't need btw)
this setup is all used from 2 mousebuttons.
no icon, no panel, not needed. its all 1 click away

so, i got off on a rant.
hope it helps or at least inspires 1 person to be happier.

btw, i just finnished my 1st attempt at my own distro on Monday night. (more to come) (try to do that in windows)

[laptopdragon]

here is my precious eterm (w/out borders this time) reporting my windows partition.

this is where you can be, happy in a linux environment, and a dedicated partition (that can be coppied) for windows (when you get this working. you can watch windows start and load in a terminal window, while you watch movies on linux....

i can even watch windwos crash, and reboot while never turning off my pc
http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e152/idanity/etermwithoutbordersandwindowspartit.jpg

you can notice, i deleted windows btw..muhahaha

[marmeduke]

"but heres my point.
try the links above. (at your own risk)
but 1st backup any/ all files.
you should be able to physically remove your HD and set it up in a temporary HD portable unit. and usb-plug it into a linux machine and simply mount it, and copy all of its contents. (file by file too, but i would recomend folder by folder)"

Not sure what you mean by the above?

Can I remove the damaged hard drive from my computer, buy a new hard drive, install it, and then install Linux on it, reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave, and then transfer information to the new hard drive? Is this possible?

Is Linux available as a download as a permanent installation on a hard drive? If so, can it be burned to a cd or dvd and then installed on the new hard drive?

[Harry Kuhman]

Can I remove the damaged hard drive from my computer, buy a new hard drive, install it, and then install Linux on it, reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave, and then transfer information to the new hard drive? Is this possible?
Sure, that would be one way to recover all of your files. Others would include backing up to another computer on a network, or even burning CD or DVD backups (which I suspect you are now wishing that you had). These are far from the only options.

One slight point of clarification. If you have an IDE drive it can be a slave. But if you have newer SATA drives then the drive can not be a slave. But it can certainly be a second drive on another SATA connector And given the price and capacity of SATA drive and the rapidly vanishing IDE drives, I suggest that any new drive that you buy should be SATA. Add an inexpensive SATA controller if your current system lacks SATA connectors, it will likely still cost less for the same capacity as an older IDE drive. If you do this the IDE drive stays a master, not a slave, but you can still boot from the SATA and use the IDE as a second drive.


Is Linux available as a download as a permanent installation on a hard drive? If so, can it be burned to a cd or dvd and then installed on the new hard drive?
Sure, there are plenty of Linux "distros" intended for install on hard disk. See distrowatch.com for a few hundred options. I suggest Debian, which Knoppix is based on, but it is far from the only choice. Debian is available as an install CD (and I suspect an install DVD), but I find it even better to download the smaller "net-install" CD, boot that, and install most of what you want for Debian directly from the Internet. And, of course, one you have a Debian install, you can easily install any of the programs that are included in Knoppix, or select from many many more in the Debian repository.

[laptopdragon]

Not sure what you mean by the above?

Can I remove the damaged hard drive from my computer, buy a new hard drive, install it, and then install Linux on it, reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave, and then transfer information to the new hard drive? Is this possible?

Is Linux available as a download as a permanent installation on a hard drive? If so, can it be burned to a cd or dvd and then installed on the new hard drive?



absolutely.
but its very likely you dont need a new HD;
if you only have a registry issue, or virus, or other windows / software related issue, your original HD is fine, and can be overwritten.

unless the HD has a broken head, or cracked platter, it should be fine.
if this HD was mounted in a linux computer, you could browse the entire filesystem, play music from its directory, and yes, copy/ paste it into anything else (usb drives, or another location on the linux partitions (/home is common, or /home/username/docs or music etc.)


and like above, many many distros are availible, and are very different.
i think the best/ easiest is Mandriva 2010, or for power, RedHat (they all have equal power, - su-).


the only distro i hate is Ubuntu. (its just disgustting on so many levels)

[chip.ling]

"
Can I remove the damaged hard drive from my computer, buy a new hard drive, install it, and then install Linux on it, reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave, and then transfer information to the new hard drive? Is this possible?

Is Linux available as a download as a permanent installation on a hard drive? If so, can it be burned to a cd or dvd and then installed on the new hard drive?

You may not be able to reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave with the step you mentioned. Even if you can, I highly recommend not to do so. If I remember correctly, you mentioned that your drive got infected by virus. So I highly recommend you refresh you hard drive completely with an overwritten MBR and reformat the whole harddisk.

I will suggest you do it the following way:

1. Backup the data first.

If you have 2 pcs and a home network setup already, you can boot knoppix on the damaged machine, depends on what OS the other machine has, transfer the files over to the good machine. Check out the following link to see how to do this

http://knoppix.net/wiki/Network_Shared_Drive_FAQ

If you do not have 2 pcs, try to buy or borrow an USB thumb drive or an USB external hard disk Boot up the damaged machine with the knoppix cd or dvd, insert the USB drive, then mount the damaged hard disk as read-only, mount the USB drive as read-write. Then copy the files over to the USB drive.

2. Wipe the MBR, re-create the disk partitions and then reformat the damaged hard disk

You can do it 2 ways, on Linux or under ms-windows base boot disk.

If you have a Windows PE boot disk or a DOS boot disk, boot it up and run the command:



fdisk /mbr


Then use the fdisk command again to create disk partitions.

Then use the format command to format the harddrive.

On knoppix, do the following (assume your hard disk is hda, but it could be shown as sda as well)



dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1


Use the fdisk command to create partitions


fdisk /dev/hda

Then use the mkfs command to format the harddisk. Don't remember the exact syntax on this command. You need to look it up in the web.

3. Install the OS you like here.

I used to have 3 partitions on my harddisk, one for Windows with NTFS, one with Linux (Ubuntu) with EXT2, one with no OS but is formatted to FAT32.

The FAT32 partition is used as a buffer area to transfer files between two OS. (i.e. both Linux and Windows can read/write on FAT32 partition)

I will install Windows XP first, then install Linux. I think it will be easier for you to have both Linux and Windows on the machine so that you still can perform some tasks if you cannot find the correct software or command to do it in Linux, just switch back to Windows and have it done.

But if you really want two OS on one machine, make sure you install Windows first, if you do it the other way round, Windows will wipe out the MBR and you will not be able to boot up Linux.

4. Copy all the backuped files on the USB drive back to the newly formatted drive.

5. Done.

Rgds,
Chip

[Capricorny]

"but heres my point.

Can I remove the damaged hard drive from my computer, buy a new hard drive, install it, and then install Linux on it, reinstall the damaged hard drive as a slave, and then transfer information to the new hard drive? Is this possible?

Is Linux available as a download as a permanent installation on a hard drive? If so, can it be burned to a cd or dvd and then installed on the new hard drive?

You have already got several answers here, so I just want to tell what I usually do with a new laptop:

1. I remove the harddisk, insert it ito an external USB cabinet
2. I mount a new, blank drive
3. I boot the PC with Knoppix, from CD/DVD or USB drive
4. I use fdisk to partition the drive, usually 5-8 partitions for multi-booting etc: 1-2 NTFS, 1 FAT32, 1 persistent Linux ext3 for storage, 1-3 Linux ext3 for distro install (Suse, Fedora, Mandriva, Knoppix, Ubuntu, whatever) 1 Linux ext3 for /usr/local.
5. I run mkfs.ext3 or mkfs.vfat to format the partitions (not NTFS!)
6. If there is something to backup, I back it up from the USB mounted drive to FAT32 or Linux storage (or DVD). Here I could also use the network. Normally, I don't attempt to write to NTFS.
7. I install Windows from scratch
8. Usually I install a Linux distro, to have grub, the good Linux bootloader, in place

You could do the same, and get a safer and more robust life with Windows, routinely booting Linux and make backups. Or, as I do, install vmware and run Windows in a virtual machine. Even safer.
In any case, you should do the backup before you eventually try the registry editing trick.

[marmeduke]

I've listened to you all about the registry editing. I purchased a new computer. It came with Windows 7. I now have 2 questions; one of which has been touched on. I want to safely move some of the data from the old hard drive to the new one. I want to do this without exposing my new system to the virus. 2) I'm leaning towards making a partition on the new system hard drive and loading a linux based os there. Can you speak to the advantage to doing that? I'm also still pondering going fully with a linux based system also. I presume this would mean fomatting the hard drive and starting from scratch? Thanks again to all the great help. Colin

[Harry Kuhman]

I want to safely move some of the data from the old hard drive to the new one. I want to do this without exposing my new system to the virus.
You should be able to do that pretty straightforwardly enough.
1. I suggest using FTP, which is faster and easier than Windows networking. If you want to go this route, install a free FTP server on the Win 7 system. Configure it. Connect the computer to a local network.

2. Connect the old system to the network. Boot the old system in Knoppix, the virus will no be running so it can not attack the new system.

3. Move the files that you want to save to the new system. I used to use Korquror as the FTP client to do this, but Konquror is said to be missing from 6.2. Any browser should work though, or even the command line FTP client.

4. Don't move applications unless you know what you are doing and are certain not to run them on the new system until you confirm they are virus free. It's better to reinstall the applications and just move data.

5. To be extra safe, scan the new system with a virus scanner after the transfer.


2) I'm leaning towards making a partition on the new system hard drive and loading a linux based os there. Can you speak to the advantage to doing that?
The problem with doing this is that your new hard drive on your new system is likely taking up 100% of the disk and leaving no space for extra partitions. And it is not easy to shrink a partition safely. You would be better off adding a second drive (they are dirt cheap if you shop around a little).


I'm also still pondering going fully with a Linux based system also. I presume this would mean formatting the hard drive and starting from scratch? Thanks again to all the great help. Colin
Yea, you would need to re purpose the hard drive. This might b a great thing to do with the old system, after you have recovered all of your data, since that infested drive is going to need to be erased anyway. DIf you choose to install Debian, during the install process Debian will give you the option to use all of the hard disk, if you select this and let the install deal with things automatically it will repartition the drive giving you a Linux partition and a swap partition (although you are free to play with this and try other parttioning options).

[chip.ling]

I've listened to you all about the registry editing. I purchased a new computer. It came with Windows 7. I now have 2 questions; one of which has been touched on. I want to safely move some of the data from the old hard drive to the new one. I want to do this without exposing my new system to the virus. 2) I'm leaning towards making a partition on the new system hard drive and loading a linux based os there. Can you speak to the advantage to doing that? I'm also still pondering going fully with a linux based system also. I presume this would mean fomatting the hard drive and starting from scratch? Thanks again to all the great help. Colin

Don't forget to create the Windows recovery disk set under Windows 7 before you start to do any thing. This is the last resort you have if something went wrong on this machine.

After doing that, if you are leaning forward to have multiply partitions in your windows 7 machine, you can use the windows 7 build in function to do so.

A new Windows machine usually have 2 NTFS partitions, one contains the windows 7 software (a smaller partition, sometime it is hidden), the other partition will use up all the remaining disk (i.e. that is your c: drive)

In order to have more partitions, you need to shrink that big partition. In Windows 7, under Disk Management screen, right click on the partition you want to shrink. Select "shrink volume", then follow the dialog box and fill in the sizing value. Then windows will shrink that partition and the remaining space will be marked un-used.

If you plan to install Linux on this machine too, I recommend you have another FAT32 partition allocated here. But do not use up all the space. The remaining un-allocated space is for your Linux installation. You have to do the math yourself and see how big you want the FAT32 partition. It is for data transfer between your Linux OS and Windows OS.

Then install the anti-virus software on your new Windows 7 machine. Turn on the feature to check all incoming files. This could prevent the infection if the virus is embedded on any of your files in the old hard disk.

Then copy the data files back from the old machine. Either FTP or share drive approach will work.

The last step is to install Linux, Ubuntu has the best installation program so far I see, but it does not matter. Just go for the distro you like. During Linux installation, it will ask you to create a swap disk, just create one with the size 2 times of your RAM is good enough.

Rgds,
Chip

[krishna.murphy]

Looks like a nice rescue disk, but where's the download link, or any instructions at all? :shock:


This might be a better LiveCD for repairing your XP : {DELETED to get past SPAM filter:oops: }

Good Luck.

[rusty]

@krishna.murphy

h i r e n . i n f o / p a g e s / b o o t c d, a collection of various recovery/repair/diagnostic tools.

[rusty]

OOPS - looks like the download link is not live on the page. Try entering "Hirens torrent" in a google bar.

[krishna.murphy]

Thanks! Torrent = cool, but not as easy as download. I found it at on Thai website that led me to one with high-speed downloads.here:

:wink: w w w . h i r e n s b o o t c d . n e t

-Krishna


OOPS - looks like the download link is not live on the page. Try entering "Hirens torrent" in a google bar.