What did I do wrong? Boot Problem

[lward1]

Alright everyone, I don’t know if it is the cold weather that is giving me a brain cramp or what. But here is my dilemma.

I have been working on an Acer Aspire desktop, Windows XP home w/SP3, and AVG 8.5. It had caught Antivirus Live Platinum at least a week before it was brought to me. I finally got into safe mode and ran MBAM and Super antispyware. Ran HJT and also checked the registry manually to see if anything was left behind, I couldn’t see anything. As it was late I just shut off for the night and wanted to finish up this morning and carry on with other stuff.

Well this morning I started it up it would get to the log in screen, I click on account goes to an empty desktop then logs off back to log in screen, WTF, I have never had a machine to do this yet. I figured WTH the customer will be here at lunch time I have time for a repair install, WRONG. Tell me if I’m right even though the OS had SP3 installed If I use a disc with SP 2 wont there be a problem? Something to do with IE 8 and the disc’s having IE6 or something.

Anyways I did the repair install, about ¾ way thru it says I need VIAAGP1.sys? I hit cancel, thought it had to do with the chipset or onboard video, thought I could install them when done.WRONG. Get done with what I thought was a repair and it say I have to activate this install before logging on, I should have stayed in bed this AM! I click on yes and it just goes to the desktop and sits there, no icons, no task bar, nothing. Let it sit for over an hour, nothing

If I click NO, of course it logs off and I have to just sit there.

Tell me what the heck did I do wrong? How can I get back in to Windows?

Thanks,
Les

 

[NYJimbo]

You should not have done the repair install in panic mode. You should have tried to research the issue you were having and if needed call the client and tell them you are having problems. Doing what you did and then cancelling probably made it worse. Now you are not sure of what you have. It could even still be infected if the repair install wasnt complete. Before you go any further I would clone the drive.

 

[rusty.nells]

The first problem is common. Probably a bad registry entry at

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon] /userinit/

If so, Autoruns would have shown it. The correct entry should be

C:\Windows\system32\userinit.exe

I'm not familiar with the VIAAGP1.SYS problem, but it seems somewhat common according to comments on this page.

 

[lward1]

Well after doing some work in the Recovery Console, Had to remove IE 8 since the Win XP w SP2 disc has IE 6 on it and also had uninstall SP3. I am able to finish the repair install, I had to get the Via AGP driver downloaded and installed when it asked for it, whew, All the customers files and programs are still intact. Now to clone, and do some more virus scans to make sure we are good to go.

Thanks NYJimbo and Rusty.nells for your input.

Lesson learned.

Les