winxp logon logoff loop, haven't found anything to resolve this

tomcavtomcav ma
edited May 2009 in Science & Tech
Can't load winxp. I think this may have been triggered by a virus/malware etc Was running AVG and it keep catching several threats and healing them (set for "heal automaticly") One I remember and I don't know if I have the spelling corect was SHeur. So I did the usual and looked it up and saw that it was bad etc.

Then I installed Malwarebytes which looked to be highly rated and it was catching other stuff and I may have inadvertently deleted something I shouldn't have thus compounding the problems.

This went on for 3 or 4 weeks and I continued to spend several hours a day searching for and studying solutions. I live on a "fixed (disability) income" and cannot aford expensive solutions. The last thing I did was run SFC SCANNOW and when I rebooted it gave me the welcome screen which I had previously had set to bypass automaticaly. When I clicked on my logon icon it ran a logon logoff loop.

I next tried the administrative logon sceen and it wouldn't let me in. No password was ever set on this system

I can still get into recovery console and when it asks for pw I hit enter and it gives me the c prompt which is what I've been working with ever since (5 days)

I have tried several fix routines from tech / geek websites that I trust all to no avail. They include, in this order:

1) COPY USERINIT.EXE WSAUPDATER.EXE
2)

1/ Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM and restart your pc

2/ At the ‘Welcome to Setup’ screen press R to start the recovery Console

3/ The Recovery Console will now open and the list of Windows installations will appear

4/ As you only have one installation on your PC you need to press the number which is relevant to your installations location. This, obviously will typically be 1

5/ When requested type in your Administrator password. If you haven’t set an administrator password, then simply press Enter

6/ The Recovery Console command prompt window will now appear

7/ At the Command prompt type the following, pressing Enter after you have typed each line.

md tmp
copy c:\windows\system32\config\system c:\windows\tmp\system.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\software c:\windows\tmp\software.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\sam c:\windows\tmp\sam.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\security c:\windows\tmp\security.bak
copy c:\windows\system32\config\default c:\windows\tmp\default.bak

delete c:\windows\system32\config\system
delete c:\windows\system32\config\software
delete c:\windows\system32\config\sam
delete c:\windows\system32\config\security
delete c:\windows\system32\config\default

copy c:\windows\repair\system c:\windows\system32\config\system
copy c:\windows\repair\software c:\windows\system32\config\software
copy c:\windows\repair\sam c:\windows\system32\config\sam
copy c:\windows\repair\security c:\windows\system32\config\security
copy c:\windows\repair\default c:\windows\system32\config\default
8/ Now type Exit to exit the recovery console

9/ Finally restart your pc

3)" How to fix winxp in 8 steps"
which I found on this site




I've not tried BartPE yet because I've not yet found another winxp machine to create it on however for all I know perhaps it's simply an automated routine of all the above mentioned.

Anybody got any thoughts on this I'd be mighty grateful! Thankfully "much" of my work is backed up to an external drive.( ...but...ya know...who needs this !)

Some of my other thoughts are:

1) I saw on one site a routine to hack past (and reset) the administrative pw (despite MS's best efforts). I lost the URL.Anyone know it? Can it work from recovery console?

2) RC will not let me open the documents and settings folder, "access denied". This is curious in view of the fact I can tinker w/ many other files some of which are hidden, system, read only.

Many thanks to all!!!

ps: I'm a newbe here

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