note to self: never edit registry again
I am very pleased with myself. Until an hour ago, my desktop would not boot at all -- not regularly, not in safe mode, and the Last Known Good Configuration was also corrupt. But! Buuuuuut! Now it is fine and peachy again!
Well, not completely peachy. There's still the issue of Vundo traces that I think I've finally gotten rid of, but nothing dehabilitating in the least. I will never again play around with things I am not familiar with in msconfig.
The epic battle:
1) Search for the Windows XP CDs (which took most of the morning)
2) Boot from CD to the repair/recovery console
3) OH NOES! I never set an administrator password, but blanking did not work!
4) I booted this offline password & registry editor from my USB to clear my admin password
5) Ran chkdsk /p and /r [/r was the one that actually fixed things] which took hours, but didn't fix it
6) Followed this tutorial on how to access system restore points from recovery console and copied over system & software files -- YAY IT BOOTED!
7) 9:42pm, after 4 Malwarebytes scans and 2 HijackThis logs, I don't see anything suspicious anymore *_______*
Other helpful resources:
- thread on XP repair without the discs
- accessing files from a live Linux CD
- 10 things you can do when Windows XP won't boot
- how to recover from a corrupted registry
WIN?!
There is probably not a thing I could have done if this were genuinely a malfunctioning hardware issue, but I am super proud of how far my troubleshooting skills have come :DDD
Well, not completely peachy. There's still the issue of Vundo traces that I think I've finally gotten rid of, but nothing dehabilitating in the least. I will never again play around with things I am not familiar with in msconfig.
The epic battle:
1) Search for the Windows XP CDs (which took most of the morning)
2) Boot from CD to the repair/recovery console
3) OH NOES! I never set an administrator password, but blanking did not work!
4) I booted this offline password & registry editor from my USB to clear my admin password
5) Ran chkdsk /p and /r [/r was the one that actually fixed things] which took hours, but didn't fix it
6) Followed this tutorial on how to access system restore points from recovery console and copied over system & software files -- YAY IT BOOTED!
7) 9:42pm, after 4 Malwarebytes scans and 2 HijackThis logs, I don't see anything suspicious anymore *_______*
Other helpful resources:
- thread on XP repair without the discs
- accessing files from a live Linux CD
- 10 things you can do when Windows XP won't boot
- how to recover from a corrupted registry
WIN?!
There is probably not a thing I could have done if this were genuinely a malfunctioning hardware issue, but I am super proud of how far my troubleshooting skills have come :DDD