Repair Windows Vista?

[madmackem]

Does anyone know if you can repair vista like you can with xp (replaces sytem files only and saves data) PC is a Dell E520?
My mates PC got malwared up yesterday, used malwarebytes to clean up, now when it boots to vista there is just a black screen with a mouse pointer (moves but no clicks) and nothing else works. Tried system restore but cant restore, tried startup repair but it doesnt find any problems to repair!
Basically I want a non volatile way of repairing windows as there is loads on the disc that he doesnt want and cant afford to lose.
Ive plugged the drive into my win7 pc and can access most parts but every file and folder on the root is locked (padlock on the icon)
Ran chkdsk on it twice and found a bad cluster and bad security indexes which were fixed (allegedly!)
I'd appreciate any help

 

[madmackem]

Should say its the same in safe mode too, with network and command promt. Last good config does the same too :-(

 

[TTK]

Data recovery firm would be you best opt', did you use a vista disk when you tried the windows repair?

 

[madmackem]

Used the recovery partition and the recovery cd.
Been reading around and it seems that if I can get hold of a full version dvd it can be repaired using the upgrade option. Need to find a disc img now

 

[neil_g]

if you can get it to a command prompt (you may have to boot from disk) try a SFC /SCANNOW with the vista disk in.

thatll check all of your windows files.

 

[neil_g]

incidentatlly how long have you left it with the cursor flashing? and is the hard drive light flashing at all?

 

[RobertP]

I had to get data off a malwared PC before re installing and used a bootable ubuntu disc to copy to a USB external drive.

see post 7 of this thread

 

[Mikesphotaes]

I had this on a laptop a few months ago and I had to reformat and reinstall it.

The ubuntu doo dah should get your data first though.

 

[ccsnet]

To OP..... re file security..... you need to take owner ship of the file or add your user in with full rights..... loads of stuff on the net so i wont go in to how.

After that you should be able to access the files but make sure your protected.....

T

 

[dougietee]

What happens if you CTRL+ALT+DEL from the blank screen it boots up to?

And does this article describe your problem?
http://social.technet.microsoft.com...i/thread/02b7e62c-ac58-479f-b5f8-9ef2b26f5294

 

[madmackem]

Thanks for the replies guys, had to reformat in the end, no ctrl alt del, tried editing registry with the command prompt but nothing worked, sticky keys sound worked but no display box. tried SFC /SCANNOW as well neil but it wouldnt let the scan run because it had a repair scheduled but when the repair ran it said all was fine! basically it wouldnt let me log on at all. managed to get ownership on my pc and copy off everything that was needed though, so not a total loss. (I hate Vista)

 

[madmackem]

http://social.technet.microsoft.com...i/thread/02b7e62c-ac58-479f-b5f8-9ef2b26f5294

I found that thread too, read through all of it and tried everything on it - done my head in. At least if anyone asks me to fix that problem again I know what im going to do!!!