Win2K - has lost ability to execute (most) programs

[zzaxx99]

I'm starting to have kittens about how to even get the data off - with nothing able to run, not sure how I'm even going to be able to write the data off to CD

If it was XP - no problem - built in CD writing support, but on Win2000??

Copying off onto floppy disks is going to be very very tedious.

Does anyone know whether USB drive support is enabled if runnig from recovery console? If it does work, then I could plug in one of those USB drives and get the data off that way.

And yes, my backup strategy is going to be re-evaluated once I get out of this mess!

 

[zzaxx99]

Actually, wind that back - I'm not thinking straight - at worst I could pull the drive out and put it into another machine. In fact, that's not a bad idea anyway - if I take the drive out into another machine where it's not the boot drive, I can extract everything I need, and (maybe) backup the registry from there, and make any manual changes that I need to.

 

[zzaxx99]

And on that tack, does anyone know of a registry editing/loading tool which will work on a copy of the registry? IE, I want to (say) use regedit to export all of the registry settings from the registry which would reside on the additional disk

 

[rossored]

I don't know if RecCons supports USB - I dont think so.

Do you have another machine? You could slave this drive in and copy files to the master drive in that one maybe? Running a slight risk of infecting the other drive but depends how valuable the data is to you.


EDIT : looks you were thinking that anyway - our posts collided

 

[Mayfly]

Have you thought about using a hard drive caddy? If you bought a new HDD you could use this as your new primary master and install your old HDD as a secondary master in the caddy. There are several of these here:

http://www.rlsupplies.co.uk/Products/Default.asp?type=dept&DepartmentID=155

You could then do a clean install on your new HDD and edit your old “data” on the secondary master – you can do pretty much do what you want with it - at your leisure.

If you type “reg cleaner” into Google, you’ll find that you’ve got several registry “editors” to chose from, for example:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download460.html

Good luck with it!

HTH

Cheers

Mayfly

 

[oatman]

Can you run online scans? Try and get rid of the virus.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/

http://www.sophos.com/support/disinfection/gibe.html
http://www.europe.f-secure.com/download-purchase/tools.shtml

 

[zzaxx99]

Can't access anything with IE - no address bar, no favourites

 

[oatman]

If you're using a different machine to access the internet you could copy a virus cleaner to disc.

 

[zzaxx99]

I can copy it, but can't run it! Same problem with the SWEN cleaner. I'll have a go with renaming to .cmd tonight

 

[zzaxx99]

Can't run .cmd either! This SWEN is an absolute pig. Next try - install new copy of Win2K....

 

[rossored]

Have you slaved the drive into another machine yet? Or are you not going down that route now?

 

[zzaxx99]

Last resort if I can't get the data off by installing a new Win2K instance

 

[zzaxx99]

Well, that sort of worked. I can run the machine, but it's so screwed up, that I think a reformat is the only answer, after sucking all the data off in another machine.

I would truly love to meet the ****head who wrote this damn virus....

 

[zzaxx99]

My god, what a ****ing nightmare this is! I'm in the process of copying all the important data off onto CD & DVD, which I'll then copy onto another machine before reformatting this one.

Installed new Win2K - can't get networking to work, probably because I need to install motherboard drivers. No native CD/DVD writing support, so had to find/install Nero. ISO standard doesn't allow paths more than 8 levels deep, so having to kludge around that.

Serial numbers/registrations of virus and email software are in my email database, which I can't access! (lesson #232,563 there)

All in all....

So much for relying on hardware for data security - doh! Won't make that mistake again