F8 recovery error!

Hello, I have a Dell Inspiron 531, running Vista with Service Pack 2. Bought new (a few years back.)
Recently I've had some malware problems with my PC, and to deal with it I've decided that I am going to format.
I turn on my PC, and press F8 for advanced boot options.
Select Repair my PC.
It loads a bit, then I encounter a problem on startup I get to the logon screen and all it shows is "other user" with the username/pass fields blank.
this is my personal computer and has only one user account. Mine, which is the administrator.
The problem is, that when I enter the information for this account, which is the only one on my PC, It says that it is not recognized or cannot be contacted.
If anyone has experienced similar problems, or if this is NOT referring to a user account but something else instead, I would greatly appreciate some help from you. Thanks

 

Hi, Welcome to Computer Help Forums.
There are two ways of looking at this, firstly you could try asking for help in cleaning up the malware on our security and malware removal forum.

Or providing you have recovery disks and you have backed up all your data and can reinstall your programs, you can use the recovery disks to do a complete factory restore.

However if you do have the disks, (were you given the option to create them when the computer was new?)
You may find that you can do a repair if the disks are in the disk drive.

Nev.

 

I have no backup cd's.

 

Hi, not too sure about the other options there are without disks in Vista, there may be a recovery partition, but I don't have Vista or that type of partition on my Windows 7. One of our other technical folks may have more information for you if you don't mind waiting.

The other option is to remove the malware and clean up the system as I said earlier. If you wish to try that, click this link, follow all it says then post the logs in the malware removal section, one of our malware removal guys will help you from there.

http://computerhelpforums.net/threa...lware-removal-help-winxp-vista-and-win7.4818/

Please let us know which way you wish to go.

Nev.

 

First of all...Thanks for the replies. There is a recover partition (D ) which I believe to be intact, but I don't know how to use it without using the F8. I tried the CTRL +F11 it took me to the normal logon page. As far as waiting, I don't mind for the most part I can use the PC as normal, just can't do the recovery I would like to do.

 

When you do F8 and choose "Repair My Computer", did you look to see if System Recovery is an option in there? Not System Restore but System Recovery. If not then as Cindy suggests, maybe you are not hitting the timing rioght with "ctrl" "F11", just like with F8 you want to startt tapping that right after you press power button and do so continuously.

 

OK Actually it is in "Repair Your Computer" suggested in my last post have a read here:
http://www.dell.com/support/trouble.../ArticleView?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&docid=DSN_336966

 

Hmm we both posted at about the same time....