If the system has two optical drives then try booting from the other drive. Only one drive will be bootable and it may not be the upper most drive in the tower.
Have you set one of the CD drives as the
first boot device via
System Setup, as is more than likely required for that model? If not, then it's not going to work.
Next Q: When it boots from the CD, the 'reinstall' option says something like "...will reformat the hard disk, IF NECESSARY, and..." What determines the "necessary"? Will the process stop and tell me whether it's going to be necessary, so I can back out? It appears as if I can save the user's personal data files, etc., using DOS. I'd rather not if I can get the system back without reformatting. Just want to make absolutely *sure* I don't disappear the user's files.
What you're proposing is what's known (for a number of good reasons) as a "dirty" installation of Windows. While a dirty installation is never going to be as good as a clean one to a formatted drive (as numerous posts here and other reference material will attest), it'll occasionally suffice long enough to get in there and back up critical user generated files (which should have been done on a regular basis as a matter of course anyway, but...) so that a proper clean installation of Windows can be performed.
Not knowing what else besides Hotbar has infested the machine, I wouldn't be inclined to even think of making do with a dirty installation, but since I'm not doing the work, I'll leave that up to you.
One other thought - have you tried performing a System Restore to a point prior to when all the problems occurred? This can be done from a command prompt, and doesn't even require accessing Windows.
You should also be able to run System Restore from Safe Mode. Assuming that's successful, you're going to want to update the anti virus application (essential following a System Restore), run a complete scan for viruses, and then run something like Spybot Search and Destroy and/or AdAware to detect and eliminate any malware that's on the system, being as how that appears to be what started this whole mess to begin with.
Majestic
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April 5th, 2006 10:00
Frogleg2
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April 5th, 2006 12:00
Flooby
2 Intern
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3K Posts
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April 5th, 2006 15:00
Frogleg2
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April 9th, 2006 13:00
Frogleg2
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April 9th, 2006 16:00
Next Q: When it boots from the CD, the 'reinstall' option says something like "...will reformat the hard disk, IF NECESSARY, and..." What determines the "necessary"? Will the process stop and tell me whether it's going to be necessary, so I can back out? It appears as if I can save the user's personal data files, etc., using DOS. I'd rather not if I can get the system back without reformatting. Just want to make absolutely *sure* I don't disappear the user's files.
Flooby
2 Intern
•
3K Posts
0
April 9th, 2006 17:00
What you're proposing is what's known (for a number of good reasons) as a "dirty" installation of Windows. While a dirty installation is never going to be as good as a clean one to a formatted drive (as numerous posts here and other reference material will attest), it'll occasionally suffice long enough to get in there and back up critical user generated files (which should have been done on a regular basis as a matter of course anyway, but...) so that a proper clean installation of Windows can be performed.
Not knowing what else besides Hotbar has infested the machine, I wouldn't be inclined to even think of making do with a dirty installation, but since I'm not doing the work, I'll leave that up to you.
One other thought - have you tried performing a System Restore to a point prior to when all the problems occurred? This can be done from a command prompt, and doesn't even require accessing Windows.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279736/en-usa
You should also be able to run System Restore from Safe Mode. Assuming that's successful, you're going to want to update the anti virus application (essential following a System Restore), run a complete scan for viruses, and then run something like Spybot Search and Destroy and/or AdAware to detect and eliminate any malware that's on the system, being as how that appears to be what started this whole mess to begin with.
Message Edited by Flooby on 04-10-200607:22 AM