# Need help starting my old computer -virus?



## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

Look through the Malware removal guide that my brother has posted over at his site http://www.malwreteks.com. He has been doing this stuff for a long time, so has a really good comprehensive guide put together, along with some tools that he has written, to do cleanup for infections.

As for the error, it could just be that you have hardware failing, not a virus that is causing the issue. The Dell 51xx series was notorious for bad motherboards and power supplies.


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## reteng (Dec 11, 2013)

gregzoll said:


> Look through the Malware removal guide that my brother has posted over at his site http://www.malwreteks.com. He has been doing this stuff for a long time, so has a really good comprehensive guide put together, along with some tools that he has written, to do cleanup for infections.
> 
> As for the error, it could just be that you have hardware failing, not a virus that is causing the issue. The Dell 51xx series was notorious for bad motherboards and power supplies.


Thanks, but the link doesn't work. It is trying to redirect me to "malwareteks" but it doesn't come up.

Okay, it's working now.


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## AJPLeBlanc (Feb 14, 2013)

If you're just after the files, get yourself a hard drive USB enclosure. 
You can hook it up to another PC as an external drive, and get your files.


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## BigJim (Sep 2, 2008)

Just before the computer boots up, start hitting the F-8 key over and over until it comes up where you can get into safe mode. arrow up and select safe mode then hit enter. Once you are in safe mode go to the control panel, click on "System", click on the tab, "hardware", click on "device manager". Do you see any yellow ? marks there, if so you have a malfunction in that hardware.

While in safe mode you may try to do a restore to see if it will restore back when the computer worked well, but it also may not. IMHO which isn't much, I think you may find you have a missing dll file but I have been wrong plenty of times before.


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

Another option.....

If you have another computer....pull the HD from that computer....go buy a USB to IDE/SATA interface (usually about $25...and money well spent). Connect that drive to the USB and then plug the USB connector into your other computer.

You will now be able to access all the data files on that drive.


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## AJPLeBlanc (Feb 14, 2013)

ddawg16 said:


> Another option.....
> 
> If you have another computer....pull the HD from that computer....go buy a USB to IDE/SATA interface (usually about $25...and money well spent). Connect that drive to the USB and then plug the USB connector into your other computer.
> 
> You will now be able to access all the data files on that drive.


Is there an echo in here?
:laughing:


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## ddawg16 (Aug 15, 2011)

AJPLeBlanc said:


> Is there an echo in here?
> :laughing:


That is what I get for skimming....sorry....and it's one of my pet peeves as well....


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

Sorry, http://www.malwareteks.com. I do not know why I did not notice that before. I was probably typing on my Nexus 7 tablet, which sometimes decides what you are typing, is not what it wants to display.


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## gregzoll (Dec 25, 2006)

You could try and run ADW from bleepingcomputer.com and see what it comes up with.


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## Rango (Dec 13, 2013)

You could get a Linux distro and run it in live mode (boot up from the CD). In will run slow unless you install it to the hard drive. But you can access all your files and save them to whatever storage you have. 

You may end up dumping XP.


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