Windows completely messed up! don't know what happened

[Lau]

Hi guys,

I'm in a bit of a panic here. Here's what happened to me this morning:

I'm going through Add/Remove in control panel, and proceed to uninstall a program that I am not using anymore. A prompt comes up saying abc.dll cannot be deleted (I don't remember the name), "retry/abort/cancel". I click cancel and then try to cancel the whole uninstall. My computer freezes. I wait. Nothing happens. After a couple of minutes (at that point, I can't open or close anything, other programs do not respond anymore) I reboot.

Windows comes back up and the nightmare starts: my quick lanch bar is gone, so are all of my startup program in systray. The couple of icons on my desktop do not have the blue e (they are all internet explorer links) but the default picture that usually comes when the file type is unknown.
I look around, and ALL OF MY FILES have that default icon picture. On click-right, the Open with... doesn't come up. I cannot open ANY program whatsoever.
When I click Start, "my network places" is called "folder", as well as "My Computer".. I can go on now.
So I don't panic, I have a partition for personal data and an extra HD for work data. I just figure I will format my operating sys partition (C) and reinstall Windows (XP Home). I reboot from the CD-ROM, start the clean install. It will not let me format C. The partition is corrupted or something and cannot be formatted... Now that's when I start to panic... What is going on??

If anybody knows what happened and how to fix it... I'd be sssooooo greatful!
Thanks

[Lau]

UPDATE
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I have my computer and another one networked together. I'm in the process of moving all my data to comp#2 so that, if necessary, I can format the whole HD.

[Lau]

UPDATE
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I got some of the icons on the desktop to come back... don't know how though. The Internet Explorer are back, but if I try to open it, instead of going to the site, prompt opend and ask if I want to save the .html document. I hit open, and nothing happens.
I had an Excel file on there too. When I double click, I get an error about Windows Installer... Don't wanna sound stupid there, but what is this?

[Lau]

I noticed that if I did a quick format, the install actually starts... I don't know if that's the way to go, but I'm desperate.
Anyway, it keeps telling me it cannot find a bunch of dll files. I took the CD out, put it in comp#2 and I found the dlls on the disk that install can supposedly cannot find (the first one is cmprops.dll)... Go figure!!!???

[Fruss Tray Ted]

Do you have any antivirus software on your pc? How about Spybot Search and Destroy and AdAware? Do you update them? Do you have a firewall?

Will any of these programs run? Is the other pc internet ready if you don't have the latest versions of these programs?

Eventually you will probably need to clean all of the pc's on your network due to cross contamination.

[Lau]

I am good about keeping Ad-Aware, Spybot, and AVG up-to-date, and I run them once a week...
I have got Windows back on, but no internet now...

I think my hard drive got damaged in the process... :(

[deddard]

First of all, after your backups, disconnect the pc from the network. then boot up and go into safe mode (press f8 during the startup sequence) and try a system restore.
see if this actually brings you back to where you were before during normal log-on.

if this is is ok, reboot into safe mode, and try uninstalling the software from there, then you can reconnect to your network (the only reason to disconnect is if there is a virus etc that could be on the network, but this is just a precaution)

It's unlikely that your hdd got damaged. viruses etc can infect the boot sector, but not affect the disk itself.
download stinger (from macafee) and make sure all your security programs are up to date. running them from safe mode can give better results if you are worried.

[Lau]

well, needledd to say that one more time, I have no idea what happened, but it's fixed!!! I did a clean install, and an upgrade on top of it (suggested by Windows)... that seemed to fix the OS/software part. Then, I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with Comcast and my internet is back on. I will just have to spend the next 2 days reinstalling all my programs and updating Windows and all! :-/

Anyway... I appreciate Deddard and Ted responding... and I hope that thread can help someone else someday