Computer help

[Samara]

What happened:

A friend of mine messed up at some page, and now her computer won't show the desktop... Or more precisely, it does, but it is as if she had no icons at all, no start menu, no nothing.

Antivirus (after analyzing the whole thing) says 0 elements analyzed.

It also randomly throws RAM errors and HDD memory failures, with random restarts.

Along her, this all happened after she was into a Nike page. "Damn capitalism" -she said.

What we have done so far:

I told her if she had a recovery CD/windows 7 CD (She has windows 7, forgot to say that earlier), so she changed the thing in order for the BIOS to boot from CD, but that did nothing.

After a few moments I realized it did nothing because herp derp HP wouldn't give the Recovery CD (does not come with it)

so chkdsk C: /F /R would have done nothing, among the other options

I asked her if there was ANY way to access the command console, or the ctrl+alt+supr thingy i can't remember the name in english right now, but nope. The ctrl+alt+supr thingy is DEAD. I repeat, the ctrl+alt+supr thingy is dead.

Since we're both herp derps i told her to go to a friends house, and ask random friend to burn her a CD with the Windows 7 Recovery thing, but she says nearby friends are all herp derps incapable of doing something as simple as burning a CD (huh, really?) So I told her to lose all her 180GB and something data and hard reset the thing if there are no other options available and if she is in some kind of hurry, OR, to give me some time to try and ask for help/figure something.

By this post one could guess its the latter set, any ideas?

 

[Markus Cale]

When she was on the Nike page, what exactly happened? It just closed everything out and that was it?

And ctrl-alt-del won't work at all?

 

[Juice]

Did you end the program "Explorer.exe" if so, thats your issue with the missing desktop. If you restarted the PC it should have fixed it, I am assuming you did and the issue is more grave than this.

I am a Mac user and my PC time is all but over, but I would suggest trying to boot from last recovery. Which would maintain SOME data, if she had last set a recovery date. All HP Computers should have 10 gb or so drive that you can backup boot from. The disc basically maintains a direct image of the primary HD to backup from (From what I understand)

Aside from that, destructive reformatting is the only thing I can think of. Or if you can somehow enter DOS and then bring your config window up to check your boot settings.

As I said, MacFag here. Windows to me is XP old. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but I did my fair share of troubleshooting.

 

[Samara]

Not at all, and she was at a page of Nike shoes and BAM. I don't have any more detail, so i'm not certain.

At first, she thought the virus had erased everything, so i was like huh, just like that? Easy. And worked towards instructing her in recovery of "deleted" files, though i suggested it would be merely hiding them, as some virus do, and not actually erasing.

While i was at it she told me halfways that disk was 186 (or something) out of 250 or something. So not erased, hidden.

After that IE icon appeared out of thin air, as the antivirus started to go all "GAME OVER MAN, GAME OVER!!! D:!!11!!!111!!1" on her and popped out like 11 critical errors and else, and detected as a threat.

After that we tried the recovery thng, that obviously failed because herp derp no recovery CD/DVD

Did you end the program "Explorer.exe" if so, thats your issue with the missing desktop. If you restarted the PC it should have fixed it, I am assuming you did and the issue is more grave than this.

I am a Mac user and my PC time is all but over, but I would suggest trying to boot from last recovery. Which would maintain SOME data, if she had last set a recovery date. All HP Computers should have 10 gb or so drive that you can backup boot from. The disc basically maintains a direct image of the primary HD to backup from (From what I understand)

Aside from that, destructive reformatting is the only thing I can think of. Or if you can somehow enter DOS and then bring your config window up to check your boot settings.

As I said, MacFag here. Windows to me is XP old. Take what I say with a grain of salt, but I did my fair share of troubleshooting.

She was using Windows 7 and there is no access to the ctrl+alt+supr thingy, the CMD, the console, DOS console command, whatever you call it. But as the IE explorer thingy popped up, it means that the explorer.exe was dead.

The first thing i asked if she had access to the process list because of that, but the whole thing was more grim

 

[Juice]

Could very well be a virus :CDumb

If you have access to the inner workings of the Windows files, I would make sure that everything LOOKS accounted for there first. Its not uncommon for virus' to sneak into IE via backdoors and then infect Windows files. Virus scan will rarely get those files because they mask themselves as OS files. And even if the AntiVirus was to get it, and quarantine it. That would usually mean quarantining a part of the OS, which could cause the issue...

I would just got for a destructive reformat. Ya lose everything, but at this point it sounds like the Windows7 OS is basically giving you a big middle finger.

 

[Markus Cale]

Your friend has been "mirrored".
Thats my guess.
She needs to redo the entire system before he(it) locks her out of her system Admin. I encountered something similar before. Shes going to have to either buy a Windows 7 disk and boot from it through BIOS or send it in to HP.

The blank screen is from the Hacker sending a "picture" to her and then messing with her files. Its why her anti-virus went crazy all of the sudden.

I would recommend wiping as soon as possible. I'm not saying it was a hacker/nerd but it could be.

 

[Brandon Rhea]

I suggest you try it again, Samara, only this time let go of your conscious self and act on instinct.

 

[Endling vas Precious]

I suggest you try it again, Samara, only this time let go of your conscious self and act on instinct.

Don't worry, Samara, Bac does that to me too.
(Don't feed the wild Bac, for they will return in larger numbers to fuel the source of their Obi-Wan one-liners.)

I know jack shit about computers, so my best advice would be to get your friend to take it into a shop and see what they can do for her.