The Monkey's Computer's Gone Apesh!^. Need some help please

singemonkey

I think I need some trustworthy advice guys. On Friday morning my computer gave me a lovely bluescreen to start with. It gets up to the login screen (windows 7) and then says that the attempt to log in has failed.

In safe mode, it says that windows security whatsit's off and it says that it can't activate. It says that system restore is off so that seems to be a no go.

Now a buddy of mine in IT (but he's a drummer, just bear that point in mind) told me to run combofix. Now I'm seeing on the site he told me to go for it (bleepingcomputer.com) that they're saying that under no circumstances should an untrained person be running combofix.

I've run an antivirus called antivir, and it picked up one thing, quarantined it, and it's done nothing to solve the problem. Finally clued up enough to realise that you can start windows in safe mode with networking (what a 'tard I am :? ) I come here begging for help.

Work's IT is unavailable until those ^*%$ in government pay us our &*^%*&% money (probably not for the next two weeks). I'd like to try solve this problem myself, but I'd rather not spend money on it if there's anyway around it. Suggestions? Advice? Kicks while I'm down? Anything would be good.

DaFiz

P!sses me off no end. Um forever spend time, munny, blood sweat & tears on Madam's PC... :'(
while my iMac never gives ma single bit of trouble whatsoever... ?

21Fretter

whats the BSOD error code? that would def help things get moving.

infernox

yeah the BSOD's code would point to a area where the problem could come from.

have you installed anything lately?
any hardware changes?
any changes in speed/function which you might have noticed? eg. slowing down on open, slowing down on copy etc.
how old is the hardware?
any powerspikes recently which could fry ram etc?
has the harddrives always been cool? (under 55 deg)

RobK

singemonkey wrote: I think I need some trustworthy advice guys. On Friday morning my computer gave me a lovely bluescreen to start with. It gets up to the login screen (windows 7) and then says that the attempt to log in has failed.

In safe mode, it says that windows security whatsit's off and it says that it can't activate. It says that system restore is off so that seems to be a no go.

Now a buddy of mine in IT (but he's a drummer, just bear that point in mind) told me to run combofix. Now I'm seeing on the site he told me to go for it (bleepingcomputer.com) that they're saying that under no circumstances should an untrained person be running combofix.

I've run an antivirus called antivir, and it picked up one thing, quarantined it, and it's done nothing to solve the problem. Finally clued up enough to realise that you can start windows in safe mode with networking (what a 'tard I am :? ) I come here begging for help.

Work's IT is unavailable until those ^*%$ in government pay us our &*^%*&% money (probably not for the next two weeks). I'd like to try solve this problem myself, but I'd rather not spend money on it if there's anyway around it. Suggestions? Advice? Kicks while I'm down? Anything would be good.

So when you try log in, does it just go back to the login screen after it fails? Any more to the failure message apart from login has failed? Do you have another account you can log in with?

What exactly is the security what'sit you mention?

singemonkey

Thanks for the responses guys. Sorry for my lack of follow up. I'm amazed at how much guitar playing I've got done with no internetz. :?

I ended up running combofix which did no harm but did no good either. I then shut down the laptop and put it away in a huff.

When the log in fails all I'm allowed to do is go back to the login screen. That's all it says.

The security thing is the Microsoft security essentials or whatever it's called. The basic microsoft anti-virus et al.

The only thing I installed immediately prior to this collapse was Firefox 4 (same day).

I don't know about the hard-drive temp but I've never noticed a problem or received a warning. The machine was still booting up lickety-split. Power surge, again, I couldn't say. We don't really tend to get them in Cape Town as far as I know?

Where would I find this error code malarkey?

singemonkey

Ahahahahahaha! I'm back! (I'm sure you're all delighted ? )

Skyped with my old brother who figured that the account was corrupted. Then I discovered the freakin' secret admin account in windows seven and how to activate it through the command prompt. Created a new profile and the angels started singing at full blast.

Woohoo!

RobK

Glad you're sorted. There's another reason it goes back to login after a logon, but that would have affected all accounts.

infernox

Whats the secret password?

RobK

IIRC, there isn't one. The account is just disabled.

You can't clicky-clicky enable it if you cant log on, though. ?