Solved Vista Virus Locked me out No safe mode quick bsod on startup cant read

okay, i'm usually a rather resourceful guy who somehow manages to fix his computer problems with hours of googling, but this time i need some help.

It all started on my dad's vista basic laptop. He got that vista home security 2012 virus which i attempted to remove by following the guide on bleeping computer. after editing the registry to stop vista home security from opening every time i ran an exe, i rebooted so i could go into safe mode and get rid of the virus once for all. when i tried booting into safe mode, it took me to the normal safe mode login screen, i then entered my password, and it hung with a black screen and my mouse almost like explorer.exe wasn't running. well i tried ctrl alt del to start explorer but all i got was a message saying something along the lines of i don't have the permissions. that's weird because my only user on the computer is an administrator. so i rebooted the computer and tried to login normally, without safe mode, and i got the same never ending black screen, still couldn't reach task manager. so i decided to take the battery out and try safe mode again. well this time safe mode started booting up, and then blam! computer restarts itself.

so to clarify, i cannot boot up any safe mode (regular safe mode, safe mode with networking, or the basic safe mode with cmd). so after a few hours of murdering people on call of duty to clear my mind, i figured i would swap hard drives with my other laptop. i got the screwed up hard drive in a new laptop and boot it up. what happens now is it starts booting up regularly, and then blam! short blue screen of death. short as in it wasn't a very long worded bsod, and it appeared for a mere half a second. upon restarting n+1 times, i get a new list of options which tells me i can try to repair the start up program or boot normally. well obviously it won't boot normally after hours of trying, so i figure i would try this new option i didn't have when the hard drive was in its original laptop. anyway the thing goes through system restore which fails to work once its finished and restarted, and it evaluates some more, ultimately reaching the conclusion that it can't do anything.


okay, if you got this far, thanks. just one more thing. i don't care much about what happens, i can easily get a new windows cd, and i have a new hard drive on its way in the mail. all i want is some pictures off of the old hard drive. i have probably a few hundred family photos my dad wants. now i have access to the cmd thanks to start up repair program choice, but every time i cd to "C:\users\my dad" it tells me it can't find the directory. well i can cd to \users\ and when i run dir in \users\ it tells me there's 3 folders there, but they're unnamed.


please i just need these photos. i really don't wanna lose them. if someone could help me out, i'd be more than happy to paypal them some cash. thanks in advance.

Welcome
Although your offer is very interesting, the members of this forum will give you all the help they can for a simple smile and thankyou when done.
Lets start with installing Ubuntu, this should get your pics, unless there are hardware problems
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/
If this does not work, which it should, we will try a startup repair.

@richc46: i hope i wasn't breaking a rule by offering money, but regardless thanks for your assurance and quick reply. i'll be burning an ubuntu disc tomorrow when i have more time. i run ubuntu on one of my laptops, but i didn't use the live cd to install it so i'll have to burn a new copy. tomorrow, when i can, i will come back and post whether or not i successfully recovered my photos. until then, may i request to keep this thread open in case anyone else is having the same issues? thanks again, for all the help.

No, my friend you did not break any rule. I was just trying to assure you that every member, who attempts to help you will do so merely for the good feeling that we receive when we are successful. When the thread is closed, it will be done by you, when you have recovered the pics. Even when closed, it will be available to all for research purposes.

The only thing I can think of to fix windows is a repair install. If you damaged the registry that probably won't help and it won't fix your virus but it's something to try.

FYI you just can't put a hard drive into another computer and expect to be able to boot into windows because the drivers and registry are set up for the original system.

alright, i successfully managed to salvage my pictures using ubuntu. it automatically recognized and mounted the drive. thanks a lot for the help.

you can consider my problem resolved and close the thread now.

I'm glad for you. So are you going to reinstall now? I don't think they close any threads except perhaps really, really old ones.