HELP NEEDED DESPERATELY--XP in INFINITE LOOP BECAUSE OF VIRUS

[jewelbrite]

I have been up all of Christmas Eve crying and trying to fix my computer. ANd it looks like my Christmas Day is going to be pretty miserable. Now my PC is stuck in an endless loop. And I am crying my eyes out because I have so much stuff I didn't get to back up (I have an infant son so I do not have much time.)

My computer is stuck in an infinite loop. It started with a virus--worm.win32.netsky from a serial generator I downloaded for a serial for Holiday Lights by Tiger Technologies. I got a warning message then I got a popup to fix this virus. I immediately answered "YES" to fix it, only it started to take me to a fake website xppantiviruspro.com. Then I realized I was a victim of a virus and tried to reboot because my screen was a mess and all these messages kept popping up. I was going to run my antivirus software.

PLEASE HELP ME

I have tried EVERYTHING. And I mean everything.

I have:
HP Pavilion a1224n
Running Windows XP Home version (do not know exact version number and I cannot look it up)
Tried making XP Boot disks but they did not work, as I am using an iMac plus Toast to make them because I have no other PC available. (Toast allows me to make CDs for PCs only but they still do not work.) My computer cannot boot from them, even though I have reset the BIOS to boot from the CD.
I disconnected ALL Peripherals save for the keyboard, monitor, and mouse.
System starts to boot up, gets to the Microsoft XP Windows title screen, then it goes to a black screen with a blinking cursor at upper left, then goes to "HP Invent" screen. then a black screen, then the process starts all over again with the Windows title screen.

First, I DO NOT have the original XP Windows CD. It did not come with my computer. I do have a set of System Recovery Disks I paid for from HP, which are of no help.

When I tried using my HP recovery disk CD, it gave me the choice to do a drastic format and lose al my data or quit. Nothing else.
When I tried hitting f10 successively to go into System Recovery, I get a stupid moon picture before it goes into the "PC recovery" screen. But if I hit OK, then I get this option: ""All files, including data files, on the user partition will be lost and the original factory-shipped files wil be recovered to the user partition." I don't want that at all so I would have to unplugged my computer to get out of that program, as it didn't allow me to exit any other way, and I didn't want to risk making a mistake and hitting a key and starting the deletion of my files.

I hit ALT-D to get to the command prompt. BUt I can only go into c:\RECOVERY (actual path: c:\minint\system32\CMD.exe and no other directory. It's on a different partition and I can't access my other files. Tried to copy over a new boot.ini file since I suspect this might be corrupted by the virus (according to what some forums say). I try to copy a clean boot.ini to the one of the C drive but get "Access denied." And no where in the command prompt am I asked to login as the administrator. I was hoping to get to my files so I could back them up from the command prompt. but no luck. I don't know how to find them and get to the right area of the hard drive that has these files.
Ran chkdsk and everything was fine. Ran another program from this command prompt that enabled me to see the volumes, their assigned letters. Vol 0 was I drive, my CD disk; Vol 1 the DVD ROM or J drive, C was HP recovery 86B FAT32 and considered healthy, and the other c: drive was healthy as well.
Tried restoring settings that worked before this happened--no help, computer still in infinite loop.
Tried the 3 safe modes : Safe Mode, safe mode w/networking and Safe Mode with command prompt, etc. and NOTHING worked. I tried these other options: Enable boot logging, Enable VGA mode, Last known Good configuration, Directory Services Restore Mode, Debugging mode, Disabled automatic restart on system faillure and nothing worked--still stuck in loop.
Tried starting windows normally, rebooting tons of times, nothing helped. Did these things in Windows XP Media Center Edition operating system mode and Microsoft Windows REcovery Console Mode operating system and nothing helped.
Tried turning computer off & on in certain sequence as suggested by HP website, didn't help.

Tried hitting F8 repeatedly and got the Blue screen that said: "Unmountable_Disk_Volume,
STOP: 0x000000ED, 0x8630E438, 0xC0000006, 0x00000000, 0x00000000" and it also said it was shutting down windows to prevent any damage to my system.

Searched the HP website, the microsoft website and tried many suggestions but nothing works. Still stuck in loop.

At this point, I am exhausted from staying up all night, trying to read and try out solutions on various forums and crying.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. The main thing is how I can get to my files so I can back them up from the command prompt, because any other way I am still stuck in the endless loop.

Thank you

[caperjack]

The main thing is how I can get to my files
Thank you

you need to have the hard drive remove and connected to another computer ,either directly inside the case or with a usb external device and remove the file unto another computer ,remember to run a virus scan of the drive first ,before transfer of data

[lindany]

Hello -- I am sorry you experienced that problem on Christmas Eve.

I am having the same exact problem right now, except I believe it all happened after my house had a power outage 2x in a row. I walked back into the room and the state of my computer sounds just like how yours was. I have not yet tried connecting the hard drive to another computer, I will be doing that soon.

My blue screen stop error is:
STOP: 0x00000024 (0x00190203, 0x85E181F8, 0xC0000102, 0x00000000)

I have done everything you mentioned above and am experiencing the exact outcomes.

What have you ended up doing to fix the situation? I just want to backup all my data, there are pictures/memories on my computer that I cannot lose!

[caperjack]

my post above say what you need to do to getthe data off

[lindany]

Hello there..

Thank you very much for replying. I came to post back exactly what fixed my hard drive -- and that is what you posted above!

My current hard drive was not compatible with the other computer in my house. I was so upset when I realized I could not plug my hard drive into my other computer. The other computer in my house is about 5 years old.

Luckily my boyfriend just got a new computer and it was compatible. We plugged my hard drive into it, and when we turned his computer on it immediately started doing a Check Disk! It came on automatically. It went through 3 stages, and fixed errors along the way.

Then we were able to access my hard drive from his computer. Unfortunately my "HP Pavilion" hard drive was denied access, even though the shared drive and some downloaded files were available.

However, his computer running Check Disk on my hard drive apparently fixed the issue. We went back to my house and put it back in my computer, and the computer started up with no problem!!

I am really relieved and want to thank you very much for your advice. I advise everyone experiencing this issue to plug their hard drive into another computer, as it automatically fixed my problem. I would have been out of luck had my boyfriend not had a computer that accepted my hard drive. But I'm sure there are adapters available. It's just the anxiety that clouds everything.

Anyway thank you very much, there were pictures of my brother that I could not bear to lose, because he passed away a couple of years ago. I truly appreciate your advice, and I hope others find this thread!

Best,
Linda