Possible viruses?

I am new to SL. I was in a particular region today and every so often i would start running slow, so I logged off and then back on. Finally the program got so bad so quickly that I tried to log out again. When I "x'd" out the SL window, my machine froze. I couldn't do a thing. So I reset via the power button. When I tried to reboot, my windows wouldn't run. Now I cant even start in safe mode and I eventually get a message about the win32.sys file maybe being the problem. Is it possible that someone in SL infected my machine somehow? It's still newish, relatively speaking, and has up to date security.

Is your computer functioning except when you run SL?

System specs would be useful.

HP Pavilion
Win XP

My windows wont boot at all now

Do you have an XP disk?

What exactly happens when you turn your computer on?

If it gives you error messages, what is exact complete text of the error messages?

Is it really win32.sys or is it win32k.sys?

What kind of video card and or onboard graphics do you have?

What are you using to post these messages with?

The only thing SL might be guilty of is burning out your graphics card, which in turn would prevent your PC from booting.. well, you wouldn't know if it was or not, as the screen would be black.

When you turn on the PC, do you get any beeps? If so, how many? Its known as POST (Power On System Test). If you get text on the screen booting the BIOS, then discount the Graphics Card. If the text stops at a message, what is it?

It is possible that a win system file was being copied into memory from the page swap file, when you turnned off the system, which could..... cause it to become corrupted, however a chance in 1000.

Try booting from the Windows System CD/DVD, choose repair from the menu. It that fails, there used to be a programme supplied with Windows called SFC.com (System File Check), it would check each system file and give you the option to install an original from the CD/DVD, should there be any corruption. Not sure if that is still in the System32 folder anymore. You would have to use a 'com' programme, as it requires unpacking CAB files, which you cannot do from the command prompt.

<sighs... the days of dropping into DOS and executing simple batch files to clean up mess left from Windows..... now a distant memory>

FIRST I GET the HP screen. then a black screen with white text pops up. it says "we apologize for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully. a recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

if your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good Configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked.

If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the Power or Reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows Normally."

It then offers me the following choices:

"Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt
Last Known Good Configuration
Start Windows Normally"

None seem to work properly.

One of the options eventually gave me the message about possible link to win32 file. not sure if it was win32 or 32k or whatever. i can try to get it back up if you think it will help.


I'm not sure of the video/graphics card

I'm using a family member's laptop to post here. Its a Sony Vaio with Vista

Well you can forget the Graphics Card issue, as you can see something on the screen.

System specs in greater detail than "HP Pavilion Windows XP" might be useful. HP makes more than one model of Pavilion, for example, which have different identifiers.

Do you have an XP disk?

Is it really win32.sys or is it win32k.sys?

What kind of video card and or onboard graphics do you have?

Could it be a hard drive issue? I dont hear any of the usual grinding etc (and never have with this machine) The machine is only a couple of years old

Grinding??? A little chirping is ok... grinding isn't.

HD corruption when turning off the system whilst programmes are running, used to be an issue, with potential of the HD head crashing into the disc surface, most systems these days are protected against that. With a MTBF (MeanTime Between Failures) of HD's being in the region of 50,000 hours, a HD a couple of years old, should not fail. Bad sectors can cause file corruption, have you 'ever' run ScanDisk?

As windows is reporting potential Hardware changes, that may indicate the HD. Booting from the XP CD, running the Repair function will check the system files. If they are corrupted due to bad sectors, it will replace them onto a good sector. It that resolved the issue, go into the Windows/System32 directory and run ScanDisk. It will tell you it will run on next boot up. Reboot your pc and let it run completely. It will show you a record of any Bad Sectors. Run it again a couple of days later (assuming no issues) and see if the bad sectors have increased. If they have, time to get a new HD Quickly, copy your precious data over to the new HD and swap them over, dumping the old HD after installing windows onto the new one.

Hitting the reset button or otherwise turning off the power to a computer running any Windows OS can, and often does, corrupt files. It appears that you hitting the reset buttton did, in fact, corrupt a system file. If you have the original XP disk or the HP restore disks put them in and boot from them. You need to repair the corrupted file before you computer will boot.

As soon as you turn on your computer open your CD drive and put the disk in. You'll probably still get the error and fail to boot but just turn your computer back on with the CD in the drive. It should boot from that CD then. Choose to repair.