XP PC will not boot - BSOD turns to Black Screen

Hello,

A friend came to me for help, and I am leary of doing anything without conferring with the experts. Here is the history:

Originally the PC had a periodic BSOD - 0x0000007B. I was able to boot to the "last known good configuration", and run MalwareBytes (cleaning up a number of Adware problems), and I ran the ESET online scanner (which found nothing). I made a restore point just in case.

After one or two more boots, I once again received the BSOD 0x0000007B. Attempted to reboot using last known configuration to no avail. Now all I get is a black screen after the initial boot messages (no windows splash screen).

I have looked at your guides about running CHKDSK, FIXMBR, FIXBOOT. I'm just a little leary that I may lose data on his hard disk (he says that there is a tremendous amount of music on there). I have a few questions:

1. What will be the impact of CHKDSK on his local files (deletion, damage)?
2. I did type in FIXMBR, and it stated the following:

"This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed. This could cause all the partitions on the current hard disk to become inaccessible. If you are not having problems accessing your drive, do not continue. Are you sure you want to write a new MBR?"

Can I still run this without damage ?

I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing before continuing. I'm assuming this is an XP problem and not malware, but that may be a future post. Thank you in advance for your help.

Edited by hamluis, 30 March 2011 - 09:01 PM.
Moved from XP to Am I Infected.

System manufacturer and model?

Louis

Dell Dimension 4700 w/512MB memory and 160GB hard drive

Edited by mat58, 28 March 2011 - 10:39 PM.

If this issue could possibly be a virus infection, can someone please move this over to the correct forum ? Thank you.
From what I read on Microsoft.com, a virus may have corrupted the master boot record and I do not want to attempt FIXMBR and corrupt the drive without a check first.
I am able to access the hard drive using KNOPPIX (I backed up most of the files).

I'll move it .

Malware is always a possibility, IMO.

Louis

I understand that the malware group is extremely busy, but my friend is asking me about his machine. I really don't want to do anything that may ruin his hard drive if there is a chance that it is infected and recoverable.
Should I just do CHKDSK and FIXMBR from the recovery console ?

Edited by mat58, 08 April 2011 - 07:49 PM.

Latest update to my investigation: Ran CHKDSK /R. Still leary of running FIXMBR in case of virus. Downloaded Kapersky rescue disk 10, created CD, booted PC to CD and ran the virus scan (after updating definitions). Received a messages that atapi.sys contains virus.win32.TDSS.c

Attempted to clean and then boot into SAFE mode to run another scan. The PC starts to load the drivers and files for SAFE mode but hangs on WINDOWS\system32\config\system.

Don't want to go any further without assistance and instructions. Thank you.

Please close this topic. I was able to create a bootable CD with virus scanning from E-Set. I was able to find and irradicate the viruses. PC rebooted normal with no loss of data. Thank you.