Can no longer connect to the internet on vista, please help.

How would I go about reinstalling the DHCP and DNS clients and their dependencies? I've had a recent virus/hacker attack and apparently the before mentioned things had been marked for deletion or had already been deleted, and the services won't start up. I can't even connect to the internet now because of it. I'm not really to good with these types of things so I'm at a loss for what to do. I have Windows Vista Home Basic HP/Compaqs OEM version. I'm not really convinced it was because of a virus because I haven't downloaded anything, visited fishy sites, or anything of the sorts but then again it might have been a dormant virus/trojan waiting for an internet connection or something.

Here's how the 1st couple of days played out, I had just gotten internet back like a week ago, and the first time I get on my cpu shoots up to 100% usage from the time the computer logs me in til I shut it down. Day 2: Same thing only this time I couldnt log into my user on the computer and had to log into another user to reset the password on mine. Day 3: Blue Screen upon log in. Start up in safe mode do a virus scan with Avast! was able to get rid of 11 viruses. Restart computer, log in fine, can't get online. I've tried system restore, it fails. Tried doing a reset to factory settings, all it does is restart my computer (I've restored to factory settings once before so no idea why it wont work now). I don't have a disc to reinstall windows and I can't pay for one either so I'd say im screwed but if anyone knows of another way to fix my computer please let me know. Sorry for the wall of text, It's just I wanted to give as much info as I could.

 

Ok, I did the quick scan, still can't connect even after finding 3 things which where a registry key, a registry entry(or something i cant exactly remember but it was different then a key) and a trojan dropper. So I'm doing the full scan now, is there any info you want me to send to you while the full scan is doing its thing?

 

I'm connected to an ethernet cord through a router.

 

It's a Compaqs Presario SR2170NX (just in case...the 0 is a zero, lol) and i cant make the restore dvds because it was a pre-owned computer and apparently the discs had already been made, so I can't make any unless there is a way to make it think I haven't yet. By the way the full scan is done, and it turned up with nothing.

 

I tried to post the results but its to big, 1.08m characters. The posts only allow 60k. so should i attach the file to the post if im allowed? Also should I restart the computer now?

 

For some reason it wont allow me to upload the .log file. It says invalid file. And when I tried to change it from that to .txt it said it exceeds the 19.5 kb file size because its 1.04 mb big. And I restarted the computer, logged in (not under safe mode), and got a blue screen like 1 min after everything loaded.

edit: Going to bed, hope we can talk about this tomorrow if your not to busy.

 

(Bump) Still need help if anyone is interested.

 

I tried to, but starting up under normal boot settings gives me a blue screen error 45 secs after login. I have to hold F11 at startup to get recovery options to pop up, but I've tried and it doesn't do anything, just starts windows up normally. Is it because I have ubuntu installed on a seperate hd, and if so should I delete it/take out that hd? (Installed it after my computer problem so that I could access the internet.) Should I go into safe mode, run msconfig and only de-select any non-microsoft processes/startup items?

Oh and it wont let me post the results is there an alternate way I can send em to you?

 

I only backed up what I thought was neccesary. And disconnecting my hd with Ubuntu did nothing. Also whether I hold down F11 or just tap it repeatedly, my computer makes clicking noises that are coming out of the computer not the actual speakers.

 

It sounds like it is coming from the hd but it only clicks when I hold F11 down nothing else. I have a disc thats about 128mb big that when I boot from it, it has options like Install Windows and repair Windows. I click on repair windows and I get startup recovery, command prompt, system restore(from restore point), restore from a backup(which I dont have sadly) and a memory test.

Can't access the recovery enviorment. Things are starting to look grim for me huh? Lol.

 

I tried all the options I could, with all devices unplugged aside from the necessary ones, and I'm still getting a Blue Screen error. I'm starting to think its a system file thats gone bad or something and the only way to fix that would be to reinstall windows, and although the dvd I have says it can install windows, I highly doubt 128mb is enough to do that.

 

Well it said that it found and fixed all corrupt files. The disc I burned from somewhere I don't remember the site, but it says its a Vista Recovery Disc and there's no option for a factory recovery on it. I wonder if theres a way for me to get a hold of the Windows Vista Home Basic OEM disk so that I can just reinstall it like that using the OEM code on the side of my tower.

 

Is windows 7 better then vista? What are the required specs for it as far as like memory goes and stuff?

 

ok good I got 2 gb ram lol I would have 3 but for some reason the original 1 gb stick got fried. Thanks for all your help I really appreciate it.

 

Ok I will, It's not gonna be for a while the download is gonna take 2 hours on my connection give or take a minute, haha. We got verizon for internet and they don't have fiber optic cables laid out where I live so the max speed we get out here is like 2.5mbps so our download speed is only a couple hundred kb/s.

 

Well all the downloads are complete that needed to be, Kill disk is doing its thing right now and destroying the data on my hd. It's going to take another 45mins for that. I forgot to start it while I was downloading windows 7 lol. After that's done all I have left to do before I install windows 7 is to destroy the vista recovery partition. I wish I wouldn't have forgotten...I wanna try windows 7 out like right now.

 

Well it told me to select a partition. So I was just gonna do em 1 at a time. I'm still technically wiping the whole hdd.

edit: Oh I didn't even know I could do it all at once, just found that out looking at the program again.

 

Okay, should I go with recommended settings, install important updates only, or ask me later?