Vista bootup & termddex.sys

Hi all,

I have a HP vista (home premium) laptop here with startup problems.

As i understand it, the user thought the laptop was running slow, so downloaded Malwarebytes anti-malware and it found a lot of malware (so I'm not sure if this should here in the vista board or the security board!). the problems came after the machine rebooted to remove the infections.

after the reboot, the (rather useless) startup repair wizard came up and couldn't fix the problem. i did a bit of googling and manually rebuilt the BCD using my mesh vista installation disk (as one never came in the box with the laptop and its the only 32bit vista cd i have). That fixed the bootloader issue fine.

Now the next problem i have is that it says the termddx.sys file is missing or corrupt and windows cannot operate without it. The weird thing about the file that i mentioned is that only one result comes up on google and the solution is pretty useless as i cant boot windows. I have checked 2 other vista home premium systems and can only find termdd.sys which leads me to think that a bit of malware has planted the file on the system.

i then booted of a ubuntu 8.10 live cd and renamed the termddex.sys file to termddx orig.sys & made a copy of the termdd.sys and renamed it to termddex.sys. After rebooting the laptop, i got the screen where the green blocks go across the screen with (c) Microsoft Corporation (like any other vista machine at boot) and thought i had fixed it. I then left it to finish booting but it just hung on a black screen.


When i get the time, i will try enabling boot logging and see if it turns up anything useful.

i don't want to restore the system just yet as the user never made a backup :rolleyes:

any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading this rather long post, but i hope i have covered everything you need :).

computer_expert

edit:

i also ran the avira rescue cd and it found 17 viruses/trojans etc on it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by computer_expert

Hi all,

I have a HP vista (home premium) laptop here with startup problems.

As i understand it, the user thought the laptop was running slow, so downloaded Malwarebytes anti-malware and it found a lot of malware (so I'm not sure if this should here in the vista board or the security board!). the problems came after the machine rebooted to remove the infections.

after the reboot, the (rather useless) startup repair wizard came up and couldn't fix the problem. i did a bit of googling and manually rebuilt the BCD using my mesh vista installation disk (as one never came in the box with the laptop and its the only 32bit vista cd i have). That fixed the bootloader issue fine.

Now the next problem i have is that it says the termddx.sys file is missing or corrupt and windows cannot operate without it. The weird thing about the file that i mentioned is that only one result comes up on google and the solution is pretty useless as i cant boot windows. I have checked 2 other vista home premium systems and can only find termdd.sys which leads me to think that a bit of malware has planted the file on the system.

i then booted of a ubuntu 8.10 live cd and renamed the termddex.sys file to termddx orig.sys & made a copy of the termdd.sys and renamed it to termddex.sys. After rebooting the laptop, i got the screen where the green blocks go across the screen with (c) Microsoft Corporation (like any other vista machine at boot) and thought i had fixed it. I then left it to finish booting but it just hung on a black screen.


When i get the time, i will try enabling boot logging and see if it turns up anything useful.

i don't want to restore the system just yet as the user never made a backup :rolleyes:

any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks for reading this rather long post, but i hope i have covered everything you need :).

computer_expert

edit:

i also ran the avira rescue cd and it found 17 viruses/trojans etc on it.

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easiest would be to use a linux live disc or bart pe disc or something along those lines and backup all the users data and format and re install vista along with drivers etc ( assuming they have a driver disc ) that or you have access to download at least the network card driver for the machine in question so you can install the network adaptor to re connect to the internet to download the latest drivers for it, unless your going to download the drivers for it on another machine and transfer using a memory device ie memory stick, ext hard drive or something along those lines.

Then scan the data for viruses / trojans etc after the fresh installation before putting it back onto the computer

i think that's what i may end up doing as i now get a BAD_POOL_CALLER BSOD

Quote:

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Originally Posted by computer_expert

i think that's what i may end up doing as i now get a BAD_POOL_CALLER BSOD

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With all those viruses / trojans your best off backing up the data - scanning the data seperately for malware ( viruses / trojans etc ) on a computer that has an up to date anti virus system ( that does not have any important roles obviously ) then re installing the OS on the computer in question and installing relevant anti malware tools ie anti virus, anti spyware etc