OK....bring on the flames....I deserve it. I trashed my home PC yesterday, cuz I am a fool. Got a junk email from Hallmark...."You've received an E-Card. Click here to see it." I clicked, an EXE file began to run, my ZoneAlarm caught it, but like a fool I clicked on RUN instead of CANCEL, and it tried to take control of my PC. When I tried to click on the start button, it went to an hourglass. After cursing loudly, I unplugged it, waited, plugged it back in, but when it finished booting, someone else was definitely in control of the PC. So I repeated, and during bootup, I hit F10 and went through System Recovery (unintrusive). My profile was wiped out, and all of the docs I had on my desktop are gone. It boots now, but it still has problems... 1. I'm logged in as the Owner, with Admin rights, but I constantly get C:\Desktop Access Denied" messages. 2. My internet config is all messed up. When I try to sign into Hotmail, it can't display the page after I key in my ID and password. I turned off all filters/security, etc., in MS Internet Explorer, but it is still messed up. 3. None of the shortcuts in my start menu for Word, Excel, etc. work at all. Soooo....how do I get rid of the "Access Denied" messages so the computer lets me reinstall my AT&T/Yahoo software and Microsoft Office. It seems like the "Access Denied" issue is preventing me from reinstalling software. When I tried to run the setup.exe for both AT&T/Yahoo and MS Office, it got hung. Don't want to call GEEKSRUS, but I will if I must. HELP!!
Unless you want all the Yahoo! stuff on your PC, you don't have to install the Yahoo! stuff to connect to the interwebs. I just rebuilt my Dell XPS and am back on my feet... and did the Symantec Restore from the same pc. I had time, though, to back up all the documents from the profiles. I wished you would have called us before you restored yours. We could have backed up your documents... Next time someone has control of your PC, or a virus does, just unplug the network cable or the modem cable. It will disconnect all, of course. Do you really need the Yahoo! stuff on your PC again? It doesn't seem like you did a complete RESTORE again, so we might be able to save your documents before a full wipe. What model PC is it?
It's an HP Pavilion, three years old, runs Windows XP And no, I don't need the Yahoo stuff....just need to get my AT&T internet connection working properly and at full speed
See if you can connect directly to the SBC modem... If you still have that default modem they gave it should have an IP address on the bottom of the modem... write down that IP address and connect to it by using your browser... it holds your SBC or YAHOO! password... you have to remember it... I believe it will be something like 192.168.something.something ( like mine ). You don't have to install all those programs. Technicians will have you install them to help you troubleshoot stuff in the future. That should get you running for now. Still, I can't believe how you were able to restore into the HP harddrive while losing all your shortcuts. This means that either the programs you installed after you bought the PC were deleted, but why would that keep your shortcuts? It just seems weird to me, man. Could you take a screenshot of the error you're getting? Do "ALT+PrtScrn" while the error is up, paste it into Paint, and save as a GIF, then show it here on the forum, to see what exactly it says. What you wrote in your opening post doesn't make sense... and I have tried to 'google' it and I can't find it. You DID call "GEEKSRUS"
OK....will do after I get home today. Thanks! As far as the shortcuts not working, I think it has to do with the "Access Denied" error I keep getting. FOr some reason, when I try to launch Word or Excel, some kind of security issue is preventing the program from communicating with the harddrive, thus causing it not to load smoothly or properly.
OK...here is where we are. Upon booting the computer, after the Welcome screen from Windows, I get two error messages: 1. A window with the heading sgtray that reads An Error Occurred When Trying to Open pconfig. Access is denied. I press OK and it goes away. 2. A window that reads C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop is not accessible. Access is denied I press OK and it goes away. I can get into the internet, but not everywhere. Furthermore, it does not remember userids and passwords to certain sites, like this one. I still can't get any part of Microsoft Office to load either. Plus, I am logging into windows as OWNER with Admin rights to the computer. HELP!!
You're pretty much hosed... Does C:\Documents and Settings\ have anything besides Owner? If it's wiped out all your documents, and you can't find them there, you might as well just reinstall XP. Get an external drive, or a large thumbdrive, backup whatever info you can find that you need, and start over, assuming you have all your software CDs and Keys (or ways of "recovering" them ) If it's still salvageable (ie: you have C:\Documents and Settings\YourProfile\, then maybe some magic-ary can be performed.
I just got off the phone with SBC global. DSL connection is back on, but certain things are not working. Like when I go to CFans.net, part of the first screen, like the navigation bar, is showing up as a blank bar.
Im not sure which triggers more dejavu You bringing up your broke laptop or me saying I answered you via email ages ago. problem is RMT is that you security permissions on your home dirctory are more than likely hosed, and not even admin rights is gonna get you r/w access to them. It *is* savable if you still have the directory intact like Mig talked about....just probably not by you. btw edit...I could probably save your stuff if it is still there, but problem is(like FFB has found) since I dont do housecalls, it can be a bit of a pain to get it to me.
Thanks R2K. I just got off the phone with SBC and my internet service is running again. I created a new profile under my name with admin privileges, restarted, logged in with that profile, and VOILA no more error messages at startup. I'm now reinstalling MS Office. Really the only two things I use the PC for are surfing the net and MS Office, so I should be OK. I would like to see if I can recover some old MS Word and MS Excel files, but other than that, it looks like I might be OK. Any suggestions on recovering old Word and Excel docs?
If I was doing it, I would try two things 1) Recovery Console - not for the faint of heart or the unintiated 2) Recovery software - recovers files at a lower level that bypasses security identifiers as long as the original user directory is still intact, the files *should* be safe from overwriting, so if you dont get to them right now, no worries. Mig, honestly, at this point I have already forgotten what the deal is (I first heard about this a few months back)
The original user directory is gone. I had the docs saved on the desktop on my old profile, which is gone. I did manage to successfully transfer the 1000 songs on my IPOD to my newly installed version of ITunes. Like I said, I really only use my home PC for surfing the net, ITunes & MS Office, which I was also able to reinstall. Looks like I've lost my docs, but it's OK. Most were BS, and I have my resume stored on another computer. Oh well. I would like to try to recover some of them, but I've never used the Recovery Console before, and I'm gunshy after the damage I caused yesterday.
smart man. with the original directory gone, your only choice would be recovery software....but since you say there isnt really anything unreplaceable, I wouldnt bother with it.
Did you try booting into safe mode and looking for the profile in there? (I think in the documents and settings folder somewhere) I've found seemingly lost profiles before doing that.
Hi RocketMan Tex, if you have time, I still believe you should format your harddisk and re-install XP from scratch. This should be one of the options in your recovery disk. That's the only way to ensure those hostile programs are completely removed.
Yeah, especially since you said you lost most of the stuff you would have backed up anyway. If you're fine with it, though, or don't have anyone to install XP for you (fairly simple if you have the install disk) then you'll be ok, at least for now. Most likely, though, if the files/program/malware/whatever is still there, then you run the risk of 1) Having the PC hijacked (again) 2) Keyloggers (say goodbye to your passwords/CC numbers if you buy stuff online) 3) Your PC being used as a spam-bot network. All = bad. I'm just somewhat cautious with my stuff, but yeah, if everything you needed was already wiped off, and you can recover the things you want (SBC global/MSOutlook), then your best bet would be to spend the extra hour and reinstall XP, so you're ready to go with no problems (at least none that aren't MS related )
