i am running windows xp media centre sp3 on a p4 machine, this had been working fine up until malware infected it. Took the decision to format the hard drive and install from fresh. I am unable to do the 30 day registration a network connections not allowing a LAN. on the whole i'm a bit stuck. Does anybody have any advice on what to do next.
Thanks in advance.
Have you installed all the drivers for your machine? Probably a disk from either the mfg of the pc (hp, dell etc), the motherboard mfg (if a custom build and port is on board) or the ethernet card driver disk if not on board.
otherwise you can download the drivers to disk/flash from another pc.
assuming this is your issue of course....
I'm sure there is a telephone number you can call to manually activate XP should the need arrive so a search on google may be in order.
I'm not quite sure about the 30 day registration thing. If it is the Internet connection that you are talking about just try installing the NIC drivers. This would help you establish a connection, if you are talking about some particular software that you has registered for trial bases would have washed away by now. Try getting a fresh copy of it.
Have you installed all the drivers for your machine? Probably a disk from either the mfg of the pc (hp, dell etc), the motherboard mfg (if a custom build and port is on board) or the ethernet card driver disk if not on board.
otherwise you can download the drivers to disk/flash from another pc.
assuming this is your issue of course....
Yes i have all oem windows disc and drivers for the machine. The reason I have re installed from scratch is due to trojan or malware problem. I successfully installed operating system and drivers and partitioned the hard drive some 18months ago. The introduction of a usb stick was the root of the problem as it had two nasties one being a trojan and an exe. worm. Is it possible these could be lurking in the 8mb mbr section of the disk.
I'm sure there is a telephone number you can call to manually activate XP should the need arrive so a search on google may be in order.
you are correct, this was the way I registered previously. I did not put enough info on my first thread, bit of a newbie to the forums. The problem is a bit deeper I suspect. Think that i've got a trojan and a worm from usb stick. formatted hard drive and went through the install process. xp boots up but appears to be missing components like network connection. drivers are installed for lan wifi etc but will not allow me to ,ake neccessary connection. thanks for your reply.
The MBR is on the first sector of the disk, LBA 0. It is 512B.
That aside, when you formatted your disk with Setup at the time of the fresh installation a new MBR was written. A bit out of my depth here... but Setup examines your disk [reads it] to start with, checking for old installations, so I guess it is possible that Setup could have been infected.... and of course, not being able to go online, you don't have an active AV running to check for such pests during a boot scan.
So..... get a disk wiper pgm, one that runs from a floppy. This one: http://www.dban.org/
Then you can erase the disk securely [a format is not such]. And reinstall. It's all fun.
I'd reinstall anyway... a fresh installations that has early problems is just not worth trouble-shooting, just shooting.
The MBR is on the first sector of the disk, LBA 0. It is 512B.
That aside, when you formatted your disk with Setup at the time of the fresh installation a new MBR was written. A bit out of my depth here... but Setup examines your disk [reads it] to start with, checking for old installations, so I guess it is possible that Setup could have been infected.... and of course, not being able to go online, you don't have an active AV running to check for such pests during a boot scan.
So..... get a disk wiper pgm, one that runs from a floppy. This one: http://www.dban.org/
Then you can erase the disk securely [a format is not such]. And reinstall. It's all fun.
I'd reinstall anyway... a fresh installations that has early problems is just not worth trouble-shooting, just shooting.
Thanks Gerbil,
off too look at dban now for the Wiper. will let all you helpful people know the outcome IDC.
We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.