Recurring BSOD halfway through windows bootup?

I stupidly activated a virus that shut my computer down in a few seconds after a dozen virus warnings. At that point I could not boot up my computer because halfway through the boot process there was a BSOD and it restarted. This happens in normal mode and all of the safe modes.

An interesting thing to note is that at one point safe mode actually worked, at which point i was able to remove the virus and boot back into normal mode. Everything was fine. All my programs worked, all my files were still there, nothing was damaged or missing. In the past I've had viruses wipe all my drives completely, but this time everything was intact, once I got into Windows that one time. All was fine for a day but then I shut down my computer thinking that everything was taken care of, and now I can't reboot it again -- the same bsod issue.

I'm not sure why or how I managed to boot it up that one time -- I didn't do anything special. I'm hesitant to reformat since I know that my windows and my files are all okay, it's just the bootup that's boned, and apparently I got past it once so I'd like to know if I could do it again.

Does anyone know what might be happening? I used the windows installation CD to do a chkdsk but that didn't solve the problem. There was also an option to repair the boot record or something like that, but I did not use it since I didn't know enough about what it does.

I am using Windows XP 32bit, with 4G ram, radeon hd 6850


Any help at all woudl be appreciated -- I really don't want to reformat, what a pain ~ Snipped as per TOS ~.

Thanks in advance.

 

The repair boot record (or repair install) shouldn't affect your programs or data. It only modifies Windows system files.

You can run an AV boot cd to check for any remaining malware. They can't be actively hiding when Windows isn't booted. As for which to choose, this can help: http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives...-compared-in-search-for-the-best-rescue-disk/

Next time, make a disk image beforehand. If you don't know how to do that, or which program to use, check this: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-imaging-program.htm

 

The safest thing to do is to format and re-install. But since you do not want to format and re-install, I would try one or more Antivirus Rescue CD's. Try scanning and cleaning with one, two or three of the following:

1. Dr.Web LiveCD (Very slow scan speed)
2. AVIRA Rescue System CD (Very fast scan speed)
3. Kaspersky Rescue Disk 10

Antivirus Rescue CD's allow you to scan and clean Malware from your PC's hard drive(s) without Windows running. The CD's are bootable and contain a Linux Operating System(with Antivirus software) which is loaded into the PC's memory.

 

oh to hell with it, i tried rescue disks, i tried repairing boot structure, i tried repairing windows installation, i tried all sorts of crap for hours, and in the end i just reformatted... not losing anything important... just an inconvenience that's all. oh well. thx anyway.