Recovering a virus-d laptop

[Eiii]

Similar to Zorch's predicament, I've a friend who's laptop is broken, probably due to viruses. It's at the stage where windows simply does not start up. I was going to stick some linux boot disk I have laying around in so that he can pull important stuff off of the hard drive (assuming the hard drive is still intact), but I've no clue how to go about repairing the operating system itself. I assume something involving booting using the setup disk would be a possible solution, but I don't know if he's even got that on hand. So, any suggestions?

EDIT: Oh, for clarification's sake, it'll get to the point where he can select to boot to normal mode / safe mode / whatever, but all of the options just result in an instant reboot.

[Zorchenhimer]

Try a repair installation off of the XP CD.

[wafflez205]

if you can't do anything at all just bring it to a shop and see if they can wipe the hard drive. Thats what's happening with mine while it get overhauled

[Justinph5]

ew, shop = throwing away $$$...

I'm sure Eiii is capable of reformating a HD if needed
But I would think the repair installation off of an XP cd should work. It shouldn't have to be his original one, any should work for a repair, right?

Have you tried running a virus scanner from a cd OS ?

[Zorchenhimer]

any should work for a repair, right?

As long as it is the same version of Windows, it will (read "might") work.

[KnacK]

Eiii,

For under $30.00 you can get a hard drive enclosure for the hard disk and connect it to a pc with UP TO DATE virus protection and scan the hdd that way. Or, just get a live cd with the ability to read ntfs and copy his stuff over to a flash drive.  I believe the latest live version of ubuntu will work.

[Eiii]

And I can format the drive from there, too!

I guess we'll see what happens.

[KnacK]

That's correct Eiii.