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Start menu vanished, administrator account frozen
I have been doing battle with a Trojan virus, among others, but now my system is messed up beyond belief. I have an Inspirion desktop with Windows XP, which is fine for the limited amount i use a computer at home. I would rather fix that toss or upgrade, but i seem to have messed up my settings badly.
Problem: my start menu has disappeared, and only the Administrator icon and my wall paper appear when it starts up I never set an administrator password, and never needed one, but now cannot bypass. If i try to sign on with ADMINISTRATOR and a blank password, (or anything else, in case i did assign one at some point) it says Loading preferences, then instantly says Saving Preferences, then back to the same icon screen. This happens even in SAFE mode. I took the battery out as suggested somewhere, but that didn't fix anything.
Dell never supplied me with Windows XPdisks, no support material other than one Dell disk of Drivers & Utilities. The hardware scan is fine when i run it.
I can only get to the screen above, or to my F2 and F12 Boot menus. Safe mode does nothing different. When I hit F2 (or F12 ?), "Windows 98" appears on the black screen, even though iI have Windows XP. Is that a problem?
If I can get my hands on Windows restore or rescue or reinstall , will it even work? Or should I give up and take it in again for service? I would like to try a repair install of Windows if possible. Or whatever is recommended. I don't even care if i lose all my data.
Thanks for any advice.
shesagordie
10 Elder
10 Elder
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January 12th, 2010 14:00
mcrchicago
If you reside in the US and are the registered owner of the computer, a disc containing the factory-installed operating system specific to your system, can be requested from HERE.
It helps to include the computer model, when posting a message.
Bev.
disord3r
112 Posts
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January 12th, 2010 14:00
It sounds as if you're used to booting your computer straight to the desktop without having to log in. What has happened isn't that your Start Menu has disappeared, but that it is now forcing your to log into your computer before you can see the start menu.
One of two things is happening:
If the case is #1, then it sounds like something is fishy with the administrator account and for some reason it's being forced to log out. I've never experience this problem, but it could be related to the Trojan, as you described. IF the case is #2, you might be able to get back into your account. While you're looking at that screen, try pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL twice and see if you're presented with a traditional login box. If so, you would have to know your account name (it's what used to appear at the top of the menu when you clicked on the Start button
If CTRL+ALT+DEL twice does nothing, try rebooting into Safe Mode by pressing F8 during startup and see if a second account appears in addition to the administrator account.
Beyond that, I don't know what else to try.
Irktou
64 Posts
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January 12th, 2010 15:00
If you can get to your "blank" startup screen try using task manager. Had similar problem on my dell 4550 running WinXP. though I forgot how I eventuall fixed it, possible threw system restore. Anyway once in task manager if you get it open click run task and open your compter, I'm sorry but the details of how I got it are a bit fuzzy, but I eventually got access to my computer through this means. Sorry I can't remeber more but hope this helps ya out. Oh and the leaving the password blank good answer I destroyed my reg once trying to get rid of CA security suite only to find that I had never intailized a password.
hanuman7
2 Posts
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January 12th, 2010 16:00
I have been dealing with the same thing. I went into the bios and switched the boot order to cd and used the install disk to repair the install. I was then able to run an antivirus from disk that I had downloaded from my laptop. I used something called combofix from bleepingcomputer.com and it seems to have worked. I am still reinstalling and running scans so I am not sure I am totally there but at least it is responding so far and I don't appear to have lost any data. Best wishes.
Hanuman