NEED DESPERATE HELP - MY COMPUTER WON'T LOAD!!!!!

[highway_to_hell1982]

i manually downloaded some updates from the microsoft website but after rebooting i got the following message:

"a problem is preventing windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. error code 0x80004005"

basically windows wont load and i keep getting this message when starting up! i dont know what to do! please people can someone help???

[fluKe]

That could mean that you have an illegal copy of WindowsXP.

Generally when you have XP and it is a dodgy key or cracked version Windows Update will not let you download updates, therefore no problems.

If you were trying to be smart by manually downloading and installing the updates that wasn't so clever because now Windows recognises you are running a dodgy version and won't let you boot up - only solution is to format C: if that is the case.


That's maybe not the only reason but I think it is 99% likely that it is.

[highway_to_hell1982]

windows xp came with this computer when i bought it! the company i bought it from was tiny! the only CD i have is a 'backup' CD by tiny, i never got any microsoft windows xp disc. i have 6 windows xp floppy discs which are used for startup purposes, i just dont know what to do as i am not a computer expert! can someone please help because i am panicing here!!

[highway_to_hell1982]

dammit..now i have a REAL BAD problem! it just gets worse and worse!!

lets see, when i turn on my computer it doesnt automatically go into windows anymore than it used to, instead i get this damn message saying:

"a problem is preventing windows from accurately checking the license for this computer. error code 0x80004005"

the only disk i have is the disc provided by tiny, i dont have any windows xp disc though the tiny disc has 'win xp 1.0' written on it, says its supposed to be used for backup purposes only. i have used this disc once before to reformat my computer, to start from scratch, and it worked. but now, i get this message when trying to reformat:

"the drive image special edition backup partition was not found. program execution cannot continue"

and so the CD is useless. next i tried using the windows xp bootup floppy discs i have (6 discs) and when inserting the first one, after the computer reads it it then says:

"please insert the disc labelled: windows automated system recovery disc into the floppy drive"

but i dont have one! i was never given one by tiny, and the only floppy discs i have was these setup discs. so i exited that and then i went through the process where it asked me to put in all 6 floppy discs, for the computer to do something (setup) and afterwards got this message:

"insert the CD labelled: windows xp professional CD-ROM into your cd-rom drive"

but i was never given one by tiny! so this process was useless and it later lead on to the same message mentioned at the beginning, and so i cannot use my computer.

i was downloading windows updates manually after automatic download caused a problem in that the 'dahotfix.exe program experienced a problem and needs to close' and so was unable to download these updates. these were critical updates that i needed. i was having all sorts of problems when first connected to resnet as after startup there was 2 programs that seemed to eat away all the memory - "SVCHOST.EXE" and "DLLHOST.EXE" in caps and was something of this name. so i stopped these to use my computer. normally when closing these the computer would work as normal. if i didnt stop these programs my computer would eventually crash. i thought downloading the updates would stop this problem. then i had the trojan mentioned in the other thread whereby i cannot access any search engines because of some DNS problem. so i tried to download these updates as suggested by someone from microsoft but it seemed i selected and downloaded and installed the wrong ones, and now get this damn 0x8004005 error which there seems to be no solution as i have searched through microsoft.com to find one. i dont think contacting them will help because theres nothing else i can do on this computer that would solve anything.

so i tried to contact my manufacturer, tiny. the numbers i called were out of date, when i found the indate ones via their website i couldnt access the 0906 numbers on either my mobile (number wasnt recognized) or on the restel phones (they have barred 0906 numbers on the outcalling system), and i tried calling customer servies, and after 30 mins of waiting three times for three different numbers, get the same result, and they are unable to transfer me. the rate of these calls were ONE POUND PER MINUTE!!! so not only did i waste my money, i feel as if i have been screwed because i cannot contact technical support because the damn uni resnet service has barred it, my mobile service says the numbers nonexistant, customer services insists those are the right numbers and they cannot provide technical help of any kind. i just dont know what to do and feel pretty mighty pissed off about it. can anyone or any EXPERT offer any suggestions of could possibly come to see my computer - perhaps borrow their windows xp CD so i can get my computer working again, or something? feeling reallu upset right now, this and stress from other things - personal and workwise.

[surfingsimon]

sounds to me as if you are looking at a full reinstall , perhaps not though.

there are two things you could try 1, start up xp in safe mode - by pressing and holding f8 i think. if that fails and you genuinely do have a legal xp copy (even if you dont they wont be able to tell) go to it-services in the library and they will advise on action and be able to backup any persoinal files (illegal music and porn) you have on your hard disk before you reformat.

[fluKe]

"SVCHOST.EXE" and "DLLHOST.EXE" Are viruses, If I remember correctly they are Trojan Horse's. You should really have found and removed these files as they were probably what was crashing the update system. A virus scanner might have been a good idea.

Anyway, sounds as if you have a laptop?

Usually the recovery CD (or the XP one you say you have) uses a second partition on the hard drive in conjunction with the data on the CD to carry out a system restore, if the partition was deleted then that kind of screws you out of that option.

You might be able to use system restore in windows or something if you can get hold of a WinXP cd. You could always try ITS... but doubtfull.

You most likely will need to re-install windows, and this time install a firewall + virus scanner. A virus scanner would have detected the viruses and delt with them, and if you had still gotten infected a firewall would have stopped anyone linking up to the trojan horse.

Bit late for that now but still.

[highway_to_hell1982]

[s]fluKe wrote on 19:10, 8th Oct 2003:
"SVCHOST.EXE" and "DLLHOST.EXE" Are viruses, If I remember correctly they are Trojan Horse's. You should really have found and removed these files as they were probably what was crashing the update system. A virus scanner might have been a good idea.

Anyway, sounds as if you have a laptop?

Usually the recovery CD (or the XP one you say you have) uses a second partition on the hard drive in conjunction with the data on the CD to carry out a system restore, if the partition was deleted then that kind of screws you out of that option.

You might be able to use system restore in windows or something if you can get hold of a WinXP cd. You could always try ITS... but doubtfull.

You most likely will need to re-install windows, and this time install a firewall + virus scanner. A virus scanner would have detected the viruses and delt with them, and if you had still gotten infected a firewall would have stopped anyone linking up to the trojan horse.

Bit late for that now but still.




i really didnt know these were viruses becaue there are so many more programs with the exact same name (but lower case) running in the background and stopping or trying to delete these will just totally kill my computer.

i do not have a reinstallation disc at all, the discs i have are useless. could i borrow one from someone so to see if itll work on theres?

finally, ITS will not help as i went there today and they said to use my reinstallation disc (which i havent got) to reformat. but as you can see from the problem explained above, this is useless. they will not provide me with any discs that could help me.

i downloaded and used f-secure virus and when i used it not only did it eat away at my memory but also it detected no viruses of any kind, even after a detailed scan. so many weird programs were running in the background. another i didnt mention was "GEARSEC.EXE" which i never heard of before connecting to resnet. i am feeling pretty upset and badly angry as i have e-books on that laptop which i spent 50 dollars on and have music which is extremely rare and did not have a burned copy of. that and my academic work. ITS's resnet is full of bugs and viruses and despite their firewalls it has proved nothing but the key to the damage of my computer, restel is denying me access to the people i need to contact, and customer services have charged me about 50 pounds for calling them - 99 per cent of this wasted listening to stupid classical music on the phone. i get the feeling that i have been jmped on and as a result not only has 1.3 grand gone to waste, but more money mght have to be wasted to get a new laptop, and i cant afford one. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

[fluKe]

You just need to get a hold of a WindowsXP install disc - what hall are you in? You could try contacting your computer rep/rcr.

RESNet isn't the problem it's the people on it that don't use virus checkers or firewalls. The number of times I've had to disinfect things which people should not be getting, eg. the Blaster Virus this year is stupid.

I'd urge everyone to keep their computers up to date with Microsoft critical updates, install a virus scanner like AVG, and make sure it is UP TO DATE!!! I have had people telling me.. "But I have a virus scanner I shouldn't get viruses" only to find they installed it 2 years ago and have not updated it once.

As for the scanner you were using, and the one the uni gives out - it's fairly pants IMHO. I use AVG and haven't ever been infected in the 5 years or so I've been running it.

Also exercise caution when opening e-mail attachments etc. How the hell some people are suprised they get a virus when they open an exe file from a stranger I never know.


Anyway, just find an XP disk that you can install XP from and you can do a clean install on the comp, altho you will lose all your files when you do this - your computer sounds like it's the only way to go. Oh if it is someone else's disk you should generate yourself an individual product key (not use one of the web cos most are blocked) or buy one off MS. Of course you should have had one for your old windows somewhere

[highway_to_hell1982]

[s]fluKe wrote on 20:21, 8th Oct 2003:
You just need to get a hold of a WindowsXP install disc - what hall are you in? You could try contacting your computer rep/rcr.

RESNet isn't the problem it's the people on it that don't use virus checkers or firewalls. The number of times I've had to disinfect things which people should not be getting, eg. the Blaster Virus this year is stupid.

I'd urge everyone to keep their computers up to date with Microsoft critical updates, install a virus scanner like AVG, and make sure it is UP TO DATE!!! I have had people telling me.. "But I have a virus scanner I shouldn't get viruses" only to find they installed it 2 years ago and have not updated it once.

As for the scanner you were using, and the one the uni gives out - it's fairly pants IMHO. I use AVG and haven't ever been infected in the 5 years or so I've been running it.

Also exercise caution when opening e-mail attachments etc. How the hell some people are suprised they get a virus when they open an exe file from a stranger I never know.


Anyway, just find an XP disk that you can install XP from and you can do a clean install on the comp, altho you will lose all your files when you do this - your computer sounds like it's the only way to go. Oh if it is someone else's disk you should generate yourself an individual product key (not use one of the web cos most are blocked) or buy one off MS. Of course you should have had one for your old windows somewhere




can i borrow yours windows reinstallation disc? you can come to my room and help me with the process if you like? email me highway_to_hell1092@hotmail.com.

[Pussycat]

Ask your hall RCR, they should help you.

[highway_to_hell1982]

i cannot access my university account because someone has changed my password

and i cannot access my non-uni email account on the dorm computer rooms because i keep bumping into an internet optimizer page saying theres a DNS error - the trojan has hit these computers too (can't go on google either)

I feel as if GOD is cursing me or something!!! boy i need to vent out at something i am so ANGRY AND FRUSTRATED!!!

[andrewdalgleish]

first of all, calm down a bit, then find out who your hall Computer Rep is. They're probably nice and friendly and will give you the XP cd (I've certainly got one you can borrow)
What hall are you in?
You should be able to get your saved stuff back, and definitely if it is on a seperate disk partition from your C:.

There is bound to be someone in your hall with enough computer knowledge to sort you out. Ask around.

Andy.

[Cain]

[s]surfingsimon wrote on 18:42, 8th Oct 2003:
backup any persoinal files (illegal music and porn) you have on your hard disk before you reformat.


isn't that what a 2nd hard disk is for? that and backing up lecture notes/essays ets.

as for the uni password, if you are in third year, and haven't changed your password at all, ITS blocked them. go and speak to them and you'll get your account back.

[hr]
I hold an element of surprise

[C.]

SVCHOST.exe will be running on 95% of all 2k/XP computers so please don't go running to delete this process Its true that there are a few trojans which insert their own code into this file but they are certainly in the minority.
Dllhost.exe can also be legitimate but as this is the name some forms of welchia go under I would be more suspect of it. Basically delete either of these files if you find them in /Winnt/System32/Wins and then follow the usual MS patches to prevent Blaster / Welchia.

[highway_to_hell1982]

Problem has been solved - pressing F8 when starting up and choosing option simply saying when windows was last ok, as it were.

Now about these trojans and viruses:
1. the search engine trojan whereby i cannot access any search engines on the web and always going to some 'optimizer' because of some DNS error, and
2. these programs that seem to run when starting up that takes everything out my memory - SVCHOST.EXE, GEARSEC.EXE, DLLHOST.EXE. not sure whether these are files disguised to be important but in fact are dangerous as they seem to eat away at my memory. i downloaded f-secure once and it scanned my computer and couldnt find any viruses.
3. I am able to download but cannot seem to install windows updates as it keeps saying installation failed, and before used to say 'dahotfox.exe has encountered an error and has to close'. i let microsoft scan my laptop and suggest updates but when downloading and installing it always fails. these are mostly critical updates and i dont have any virus of firewall programs to protect me from the dangers on resnet right now.

Would appreciate some help in these problems now, hopefully my computer will not die on me as its now reaching its second birthday.

[Pussycat]

[s]highway_to_hell1982 wrote on 12:33, 10th Oct 2003:
Problem has been solved - pressing F8 when starting up and choosing option simply saying when windows was last ok, as it were.

So you did system recovery as was pointed out at least once already.

As someone already mentioned f-secure is rubbish. Have you tried another virus scanner yet? If not try AVG, these programs are designed to help you so why not try using them?

[Rennie]

Why don't you just burn off your vital files, and then format the whole computer and start again? You're really getting all worried over something that isn;t that big a deal if you don't panic

[andrewdalgleish]

he can't rennie, his pc won't even load into windows because of the licence code issue. he needs to find a computer expert in hall somewhere to help him fix it.

[andrewdalgleish]

i should really read the whole thread before posting in future...

[AMAZED]

Hi, i was running an old packard bell puter windows M.E. i installed avg anti virus, zone alarm firewall, spy bot and adaware se personal. one day i got a message saying my zone alarm was corrupt, so i deleted it, and after that i got a lock on all my pages, i couldnt open anything at all, all it said on my screen was ZONE ALARM LOCKED.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, i am awaiting the arrival of a new puter, and i am scared now of downloading avg and zone alarm and spy bot etc in case the same thing happens, any tips ?