Serious problem

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Yesterday I got a worm called gaelicum.a.  Between yesterday and today I got rid of it.  After doing that, I ran windows update today and tried to get SP3.  It downloaded and installed, then needed to restart my system.  When it tried to restart, I get bsod's with the following:

the bios in this system is not fully acpi compliant

stop 0x000000a5 (0x00000002, 0x8a7d32e0, 0xe1a1ea70, 0x8a777318)

It bsod's on every hard reboot attempt on both start windows normally and safe mode options.  I cannot get it to boot into windows, I'm basically stuck.  Things I've tried so far:

Reseating the DIMMs.
Disabling intelppm.sys from the recovery option after booting from my xp cd (I'm running AMD but I found a forum post that recommended doing this, not sure I did it right)
Deleting hiberfil.sys from the recovery option after booting from my xp cd (not sure I did this right either)


I'm not sure the worm and this problem are linked, I think it may just be a bad install of SP3.  In any case I'm out of ideas.  Posting from a laptop.

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Making no progress here, really hope I haven't lost everything.  This is the closest thing I can find on microsoft support:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314830/en-us

[WildKatZ*{MEOW}*]

way over my head brother, all i can do is wish u good luck.

[Jugulator*{MEOW}*]

and this doesn't work?

To work around this behavior, manually install the Standard PC hardware abstraction layer (HAL):
1. Restart the computer to restart Setup.
2. When Setup starts again, press F7 (not F6) when you see the "Press F6 if you need to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver" screen.
Windows automatically disables the installation of the ACPI HAL and installs the Standard PC HAL.

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Problem is, I'm not reinstalling windows.  I think thats a recommendation for people getting this error when theyre installing windows.

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

This could be two separate issues but I doubt it.  Something changed in BIOS or the boot sector has been infected. Any new devices?  RAID set up or change?

Smooth, if this is contributed to the virus, this one is a nasty.  I am seeing this all over the place.  From all I can tell is this little nasty is written in the boot sector.  What this means is not even a reformat will help you out.  It will take a deleted partition and then a format. Whats worse is that you may very well have a corrupted BIOS.
Unless you are finding other information, I am seeing that this little nasty will infect a network as well. 

A tip for all
The first mistake when tackling a virus is NOT shutting off the Windows Restore. This is important, leaving the system restore running allows the virus to live on, even if you do not restore.  The second is not re-writing the boot sector. 

(Shutting off the Windows Restore is a good maintenance tool for everyone.  There is no reason to keep more than one clean restore point.  If you have a machine running in tip top shape, kill the restore and turn it back on.  Please note, to remove ALL restore points, just turn the Windows Restore off, reboot, turn the restore back on, you are good to go and probably gained 1-5gigs of space back)

Smooth, here is a way around if you really need to get data from the infected drive/s.
Disconnect that and any hard drives you have in that computer.  Place an un-infected hard drive in and re-partition and format it and install Windows.  Update Windows fully.  Update your drivers and anything else you need.  I would not install any games or supplemental applications yet. Just install and update your Windows and virus apps.  Make sure you have a good AV program that is running in real time.  Run a virus scan after several reboots. If this nasty shows up again, well, think flash, as in flashing that BIOS because this nasty bastard can and does infect the BIOS.
If your system shows clean, you can now try the following.
Once the above has been done, and you are running clean, shut down and connect the infected drive. Grab what you need off the other hard drives such as application data, game profiles etc...... and burn them to DVD/CD - get everything you need because that drive is toast without re-partitioning.  More than likely, from what I am seeing, is you may infect the new drive with that from the old.  Hence, put your data on DVD or CD to retrieve later once you have a clean running system.  Just make sure you do not create the DVD or CD as bootable.  This will eliminate the boot sector and hopefully trap that virus on the medium.  Since there is no active boot sector, it should be fine.
This is of course if you need to have that data from the other drive.  If not, then before you decide to re-install windows, make sure you re-write the boot sector and repartition that hard drive.

Lastly, you need to note that any and all drives (even the new drive with the fresh install of Windows) are most likely contaminated.  You will need to re-partition all drives before a new install of Windows.  This means all drives you have had in that computer.  Not just a format but loose everything with a deleted partition/s so that all drives are pristine.  This will save much heart ache later.

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Well I did have some stuff backed up to an external usb hdd.  Guild wars templates, cod4 player file, schoolwork, photos.  None of that showed any sign of being infected when I was still able to get into windows and run scans.  No new devices, I don't use raid.  I have the infected system disconnected from my router.  So you think I should reformat before a BIOS flash?  I'm wondering if it will even boot on a clean windows install.  I can deal with wiping the C drive.  Can probably have it up again in a day or two.  I'm not familiar with how to re-partition and re-write the boot sector.  Do you have a procedure for that?

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Also, I'm thinking about slipstreaming SP2 or SP3.  The xp home disk I have is SP1.  Is that a worthwile procedure or something you'd recommend?  If I slipstreamed SP3, would that take care of everything between SP1 and SP3?

[Felix*{MEOW}*]

Over in GTR Puba has been running SP3 on his PC to make shoure
is working fine. Heres a link there.
i will post a link to this thred over there as well. Sounds like the more help the better.

http://www.gamerstechresources.com/forum/index.php?topic=777.0

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

TY all for the help.  In the meantime I've downloaded all my programs and drivers and am burning them to a cd on this laptop to get back up and running faster.

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

Perfect.  The reason for burning them is to not have a boot sector.  I can almost bet that the new Windows install (The one to help get you your stuff off the drives) will in fact get infected if this resides in the BIOS.
Smooth, that would be your call on the Flash.  I think I would grab the data first, burn it and then do your flashing if necessary.
What I am thinking is that with this other HD installed, partitioned and formatted, if the virus does show back up, this is a clear sign that the BIOS has been infected. 

Well I did have some stuff backed up to an external usb hdd.  Guild wars templates, cod4 player file, schoolwork, photos.  None of that showed any sign of being infected when I was still able to get into windows and run scans.  No new devices, I don't use raid.  I have the infected system disconnected from my router.  So you think I should reformat before a BIOS flash?  I'm wondering if it will even boot on a clean windows install.  I can deal with wiping the C drive.  Can probably have it up again in a day or two.  I'm not familiar with how to re-partition and re-write the boot sector.  Do you have a procedure for that?

As for partitioning, that comes with booting from the Xp install disk.  Follow the instructions for New Install.  You will get to a point where you have a choice to partition or install.  Please delete all partition's shown.  You will loose everything at this point and start completely new with a clean fresh wiped HD.  Re-partitioning this will re-write the boot sector.
If you just want to re-write the boot sector, install the XP disk, choose "Repair" Windows installation.  This should put you at the C: prompt.  At that point you type FIXBOOT.  It takes just a moment.  You loose no data with this method.  All this does is repair the the boot sector that allows the normal start up of windows and points to HAL.dll for boot sequince such as a dual boot system. HAL is needed regardless of dual boot or not.

As for the SP3, Slipstreaming is for Cooperation's with multiple licenses. You could in-validate a good XP key when doing that.  I have heard little success in slipstreaming with single licenses.  To be honest, I have not tried that myself.  I just spend the hours updating from scratch. 

[THEKATZ*{MEOW}*]

BTW, I see what you are saying.  You might not be able to install a new HD and XP due to the corrupted BIOS if that is the case.  Then you are stuck with a Flash.  Depending on how old the BIOS is, this can be painful or as easy as pie.  You might want to just remove the battery for a few hours.  Jumping might work but I dont know if jumping or removing the battery will actually rid the virus.  Might try it? 

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

I don't think resetting the CMOS with the motherboard jumper would do much good.  I think I'll probably just end up doing a reinstall of windows with a fresh partition.  Most of my stuff is backed up to that external usb hdd.  I'll lose some stuff in the process, but nothing that can't be replaced.  But I think I'll try that before I try a flash.  I'm running an Asus A8N32 with 0903 BIOS and I think there have been about 4 revisions after that.  I really don't think the external hdd got infected.  None of the scans and removal utilities I ran showed anything on that drive.  The worm targeted .exe files, infected 268 of them before I pushed the reset button on the computer and was able to remove it (or so I thought).  But I don't have any .exe files on that external hdd so I'm thinking it didn't get that far.  I'm not worried about losing anything on that infected C drive so I won't waste time trying to recover anything that's potentially infected, just delete it all.  I won't bother with slipstreaming either.  God I hope it didn't get into the BIOS.

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

I just reread some of your posts TK and I think there is a misunderstanding here.  I've got the C drive (main drive, windows installed) and I've got the other usb hard drive (just a few backup files here).  Basically I just want to wipe the C drive and reinstall windows there.

[Smooth*{MEOW}*]

Deleted the partition on the C drive, its formatting it to NTFS now, and will install windows.