cross posted this from the wuug mailing list

I took off more than I could chew when I offered to clean off the personal data of a donated dell inspiron 700m (circa 2005). I ended up destroying the Windows OS. A virus had already removed the Windows restore points and somehow disabled the factory install restore partitions, even though there was no current infection of core OS — a fact I hadn’t fully grokked before I charged on regardless. It appears the working antivirus software had managed to isolate the offending virus before it had shut down and on subsequent reboots it was operating cleanly with the exception of a broken network subsystem and some weirdness with the battery.

I had managed to restore the network and updated the Anitvirus software and uploaded overdue security updates — I thought I was doing OK but had in fact released more viral code. I just don’t get the Windows mindset. On reboot the machine was lost. A particularly nasty piece of code. It allowed the machine to run with only a slight delay at boot time but was in fact spreading itself throughout the filesystem and a few places beyond. Surprisingly the "safe mode" boot option seemed to work OK and through that I tried to patch the system with a downloaded version of Windows XP Service Pack 3. That was a no no. Now it wont boot even to safe mode.

I realize this is the wrong forum to be posting a request for help on Windows computers, but the whole mindset is so strange I hope to find the responses on the WUUG list more comprehensible. This machine is set to go to Cambodia for a humanitarian project. The Cambodians use Windows exclusively (poor sods — something to do with their alphabet) and so it seems the hard drive really needs to be zeroed and a new Windows XP OS installed. I have tried ordering a recovery CD directly from dell and have yet to hear back whether that shall be successful. Presuming I can get the machine specific OS install CD, there is still the issue of all the software installed. That is just as lost as the OS. Now I can boot the machine using a linux CD and grab any data I need, but have no idea what to look for. If I grab the registry will I be able to extract the product keys and so reinstall MS Office 2003? I am sure I can get my hands on a copy of the installation media. And what about other software? Man, Windows is a pain. I am glad I didn’t have to preserve data. I would be crying now.