Blank screen, and nothing works. :/

kaiser sauze

Hi

Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

My system is XP Home SP2.

Just yesterday my PC locked up as I played a video and had the internet on in background. I switched it off with the power button as task manager was locked up, too!

Upon the re-start I found that on both accounts on my PC had blank screens, i.e. no desktop icons, no taskbar, no system tray, quick launch or even pressing the Windows key does not bring up the start button. (The only thing that does appear was the desktop background)

I also have found that my shutdown times are about 5-10 minutes, while my startup is normal. A diskcheck has not found any file structure errors and the drive turned out to be massively fragmented, which is wasn't earlier in the week. ('fragged now, no pick up in performance)

I can bring up task manager, but cannot start any programs 'msconfig', 'services.msc' 'iexplore', 'explorer' through the run command. Even browsing to firefox.exe does not work. Everyone of the above gives me the error '...not a valid win32 application.'

I rebooted a few times to this same state. Then I went to safe mode and things are fine, everything, that is available in this mode, works.

Ran a few scans and found:

CWSmsconfig

FFbios EX, a dodgy Firefox drive by download.

2 ADS.

Win32 Backdoor

All are, as far as I can possibly determine, removed.

None of my data seems corrupted, I can access everything I have needed so far. I've moved everything onto an external that I need now. I've uninstalled pretty much everything and the system is nearly back to factory state(!), but still no joy.

I have two HJT logs, after my own removals. One is the normal system scan and the other is a deep scan of startup items. Is there anything untoward that I have missed in them, or is this a simple case of system corruption?

Thanks in advance.

thebman

Half your OS files seem to be missing. First thing you do is get your XP disc and run a repair on your system to restore the missing registry settings and files.

You should uninstall this files IMO because you don't need them and I don't trust them.
Uninstall DesktopWeather.exe. Why do you need a whole program for the weather. You could get a widget or just look it up online.

Add it to iGoogle or something.

And what the is this programs full file name:
C:\PROGRA~1\SEAMON~1\SEAMON~1.EXE

kaiser sauze

brim4brim wrote: »

Half your OS files seem to be missing. First thing you do is get your XP disc and run a repair on your system to restore the missing registry settings and files.

You should uninstall this files IMO because you don't need them and I don't trust them.
Uninstall DesktopWeather.exe. Why do you need a whole program for the weather. You could get a widget or just look it up online.

Add it to iGoogle or something.

And what the is this programs full file name:
C:\PROGRA~1\SEAMON~1\SEAMON~1.EXE

Very funny, I had the same thought and I am running that system re-install right now. [It says it does not ruin settings etc. I await in hope. ]

DesktopWeather is uninstalled, I think that's been gone for a few months now. It must be an obsolete key. I'll delete it through regedit from safe mode, but I very much doubt it is the cause of my problems.

The program you ask about is Seamonkey, a web browser by Mozilla. It is safe.

kaiser sauze

Repair did not work. :rolleyes: Looks like a restore is in order. Oh, joy; an all-nighter before going back to work tomorrow. :mad:

thebman

Have you tried just doing a system restore to a previous safe state.

Probably won't work as something seems to be seriously wrong if a repair didn't even work as thats just basically resinstalling it.

kaiser sauze

brim4brim wrote: »

Have you tried just doing a system restore to a previous safe state.

Probably won't work as something seems to be seriously wrong if a repair didn't even work as thats just basically resinstalling it.

I have system restore switched off as its useless. I use eruNT, but I have no backup fresher than 3 months old.

Yes, I know, kick me.

I think I'll have to bite the bullet and restore to factory state. It was more in hope than anything else that I posted here.

kaiser sauze

brim4brim wrote: »

Half your OS files seem to be missing. First thing you do is get your XP disc and run a repair on your system to restore the missing registry settings and files.

Just had a thought on this. I never thought that I was missing a load of system files. Might you have got that impression from the fact that I ran HJT from safe mode?