Computer restart troubles

I have been asked to fix my uncles computer. It's basically loaded with spyware and viruses. Now, first time i scanned, it restarted itself. Before it restarted, it popped up with a blue screen. Couldn't read anything it said though, too quick.

Now, i have narrowed it down to the documents and settings folder. Any time this is accessed it cause the computer to restart. Anything. Viewing the contents of one of the folders/scanning... anything.

Does anyone have any ideas?

To stop the Blue Screen from disappearing, follow these instructions:

-Right-click on My Computer
-Choose Properties
-Click the Advanced tab
-Under Startup and Recovery, click the Settings button
-Make sure that "write an event to the system log" and "Send an administrative alert" are CHECKED
-UNCHECK "Automatically restart"
-Hit OK

Also, uncheck all the startup items from msconfig and run a boot scan, most of the antivirus programs have this option.

Wild guess: A video in there is using a damaged/virused up codec. Anything causing the thumbnail to be generated causes a crash.

I am guessing this because something similar happened on my Vista machine.

Just to make sure that the file system is ok run chkdsk /F in a command prompt (or start->Run..). As I have come across something simular. If it is a virus turn of system restore before you try and scan.

It might also be worth using an alternative file viewer to examine the docs and settings folder:

Turbo Navigator
Total Commander

What about Start > Run > CMD
Then DIR into the docs and settings folder. Same problem?

I think the video codec could have have been the problem. VirusHeat was on the computer and some other virus that poses as a video codec. Now all that is removed... ( 4 hours later...) Everything seems good. Till i get it back in 2 month again that is of course. Thanks for all your replies!

Tell your uncle to buy his porn instead of trying to find freebies unless he can fix this on his own :P

Boot from a Linux-based anti-virus CD and let it scan the machine. There are free ones on the net, check Distrowatch.

Format, reinstall.

Not much point in formatting if it's fixed :D And yep, porn is the problem. I wish there was somewhere you could name and shame people who get their computer clogged up to such an extent it restarts :o)

My restarts weren't caused by porn! Honest! *chokes on coffee*

Anyway, Problems viewing folders do seem to be mostly linked to dodgy codecs. I didn't used to think so, but since Vista and returning to XP, and installing a few codec packs (I now just stick to K-lite mega, works wonders.) i have come to the conclusion that Codecs are a pain.


I don't get how a codec should even be able to restart a system- isn't windows supposed to just block bad behavior?

Bad sectors on your harddisk may cause this too.

*chokes on coffee too* :D

If you can get into safemode disable all your services from pc management until you find the culprit. If it blueys even in safemode then as Mortiis said its quite possibly HDD related, either the FS is screwed up or worse could be hardware, try get your data off from it using a tools/live cd if you have one and then do a full disk diagnostic.