Resolved Can't get past the login screen

I was handed a computer to fix (virus infection) and after removing some infected files, I now have a problem I haven't seen before. Here's the chain of events.

The comp (Dell Dimension 2400, XP Pro, Service Pack 2) was infected with something nasty and essentially froze after booting There are 5 user accounts plus the Guest account. There was no sign of any protective software on the machine so I did what I usually do. I removed the drive from the PC and hooked it as an external USB drive to my laptop. My laptop has Avast!, ASquared and MalwareBytes installed for just this kind of troubleshooting.

Next I did a scan of the entire drive. Each time Avast came across an infected file, I wrote down the location and filename. After the scan, I created a folder named "Moved" and relocated as many of the suspect files as I could to that folder. Any files I was unsure of or couldn't be moved I ignored. The only exceptions were a bunch of .dll files that followed a set name format: 8 letter file name, alternating consonants and vowels (example: godojuje.dll toyigeru.dll). I deleted some 20 of these .dll files from the Windows\System 32 folder and had the rest relocated in case removing them might do serious harm.

Upon replacing the drive and rebooting the computer, I had the curious problem of not being able to logon to any of the available accounts. Any I clicked on would load settings, logoff, save settings and return to the logon screen in an eyeblink.

I tried using safe mode, only to discover that any boot method other than 'normal' results in instant rebooting.

Without any way to get Windows running to address this problem, I took the drive back out, hooked it to the laptop and returned every file in the "Moved" folder to its original location. This did not change anything.

So now I have a computer than I cannot logon to. Any ideas on how I can deal with this problem? I don't want to wipe the drive if I can possible avoid it.

Thanks in advance!

Wirewolf

 

Thank you for the information. It's too late tonight to follow up but I will study this tomorrow and see if it will help.

 

Well, I followed the instructions as closely as possible, lots of files were removed but some things the "saveme" program tried to do failed for various reasons. Unfortunately nothing has changed. The comp is still doing exactly the same thing as before.

However, now I'm wondering if I can expect any good to come of using the XP installation disk and doing a repair from it (never done that.) Or even building up a second drive and trying to migrate the programs and settings from the old disk to the new (never done that either.)

Any other ideas?

 

After banging my head against this problem, your original response turned out to be the correct one. The 'saveme' program worked after I ran it a second time. I now have the computer booting properly and can get to work repairing the damage done by the viruses (he had multiple infections.)

Thank you very much for your help!

Wirewolf