Windows XP system restore

[Earth_First]

I need to do a system restore after some crap ocurred while my firewall was disabled, however when I attempt the system restore, nothing appears other than a blank white screen.

HELP!

[kuozzman]

1. Can you use your XP cd to boot?

If so, you can repair or re-install windows.

[Earth_First]

3. That was my next step...

Just curious if there was any trouble shooting I could do to avert doing this.

Thanks for your response!

[leftyandproud]

7. well

the "crap" that occured without a firewall is likely a few trojan viruses and spyware installed on your system.

Go to download.com and search for the following programs. Download them all. UPDATE them all in their menues, then press F8 while rebooting to go into safe mode, and run complete scans.

The programs you need are

AVG Free (anrivirus)
Spybot Search and Destroy
Ad-Aware SE

Download this program as well. It is specifically made to get rid of harmful programs. Make sure to get the free version, and remember to UPDATE it as well.

http://www.emsisoft.com/en/


Before running scans, one by one in safe mode, defragment your hard drive.

Start, programs, accessories, system tools, defragment. Reboot and defragment again.

Now go to start, programs, accessories, windows explorer.

Double click "my computer" then right click "C:" and choose properties, tools, error checking, check now. Click both boxes, hit ok and reboot. This will check your hard drive for physical errors and fix them automatically. It can take a while so be patient.

After this, reboot and do another defragment.
See if that helps.

If not, try one last thing. A program called anticrash.

http://www.tucows.com/preview/269386.html

Let it "automatically fix errors" on your system. If this doesn't work, you may need to use your XP CD to reformat. Unfortunately you will lose everything this way, so you should back up important stuff to CD first.

[Liberal In Texas]

2. This happens all the time. The restore points get lost.

Especially when you need them.

I finally got a Maxtor 300 gig external hard drive for back up from my wife at X-mas. Much more peace of mind.

[frylock]

4. have you tried another restore point?

Does it keep hanging on the same restore point?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. are you familiar with Norton ghost program?

My husband had a trojan sneak into his computer and it messed up everything. After he finally got it back, a friend recommended Norton ghost. It makes a ghost copy of everything on your computer-don't know the details, but he's certain that this will make things easier the next time everything crashes.

[Earth_First]

6. I'll look into that...

Thank you for the suggestion.