WINDOWS 7 ERROR CODE: c0000135 cannot find %hs file is missing...

Hello,

My wife's computer started having this error this morning and randomly rebooting after about 2 minutes. Not sure where to start on this one.

Thanks in advance.

Hello

I'll be happy to help. However, I need more information please:

-Do you have AVG Antivirus Software installed?
-Do you have McAfee software installed?
-What have you tried to help repair the problem?

Please also see if Safe Mode is working (tap F8 before Windows starts to load and select the Safe Mode option from the menu).

Thanks!

No AVG
Yes McAfee Security
Haven't really done anything to try and repair.

Safe mode w/networking seems to be stable...at least it hasn't rebooted itself yet.

*Take that back, it stayed up in safe mode for about 5 minutes then rebooted itself.

Also just noticed that when it reboots, prompt comes up asking for boot device and the main hard drive isn't listed. If I power down the computer and restart it comes back as a choice again.

Please boot in to Safe Mode with Command Prompt, and run the following command in the black box when it pops up:

chkdsk C: /r /f

It should ask you to reboot and then it will run the scan. Please reboot after that and allow it to scan and check for errors in the disk.

Note... there are 5 stages...
It may appear to hang at a certain percent, but this is normal.
Please allow it to run and finish.
When completed it will boot the system back into Windows.

Please let me know if this fixes the problem, or if it does not function.

Ran CHKDSK and didn't see any errors. It rebooted ok, but when you reboot without turning off power it doesn't see the main hard drive. If you shut off system power and restart it sees the hard drive just fine...

After running CHKDSK again this afternoon; I think that it was on step 4 of 5 and then it had a quick flash of a blue screen and then rebooted really quickly. I couldn't read anything on the blue screen.

There is the possibility of one of two things:

1. Virus/Malware called TDSS Rootkit

2. Hard drive not being recognized by operating system or BIOS.

Here's what to do first:

When the computer boots, enter Setup mode by pressing DEL or F12 or whatever system hotkey is available.

Once there, look for hard drive settings. You should see information about your hard drive there. If you see the word none listed, the hard drive is not recognized by the BIOS. If you see a brand name or model number listed, it is being recognized by the BIOS but not by the operating system.

NOW, if the hard drive is being recognized by the BIOS, then please do the following:

• Download Kaspersky RescueDisk and burn it to a bootable disc.
  If you encounter problems running the RescueDisk, you can get further assistance at the Kaspersky Support Forum.
  

If you are not sure how to burn an image, please read How to write a CD/DVD image or ISO. If you need a FREE utility to burn the ISO image, download and use ImgBurn.

Let me know how it goes.

BIOS sees the hard drive.

Downloaded Kaspersky RescueDisk and burned to bootable disc. Loaded up on the computer fine.

Updated rescue disk and scanned all drives, disk boot sectors and hidden startup objects; it came up with no threats detected.

Please download and burn Ubuntu Linux to work as a liveCD environment, instructions for download and install are on this page: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Let me know once done and when you're in the Linux environment.

Ok, got the environment loaded.

Awesome.

Follow this tutorial to download and install Avast. Please do so and run a scan with it. I will need a log from it, if possible.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/14434/scan-a-windows-pc-for-viruses-from-a-ubuntu-live-cd/

If you cannot find the scan log, I can give you tips on finding it.

Couldn't mount the drive and got following error:

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 13: Error reading bootsector: Input/output error
Failed to mount '/dev/sda1': Input/output error
NTFS is either inconsistent, or there is a hardware fault, or it's a
SoftRAID/FakeRAID hardware. In the first case run chkdsk /f on Windows
then reboot into Windows twice. The usage of the /f parameter is very
important! If the device is a SoftRAID/FakeRAID then first activate
it and mount a different device under the /dev/mapper/ directory, (e.g.
/dev/mapper/nvidia_eahaabcc1). Please see the 'dmraid' documentation
for more details.

Ahhh that says a lot! I will return in the next day at the latest with further instructions. I need to research this issue...

Do you have another similar Desktop computer you can install this problem hard drive into as a "slave drive"? There is a good chance the hard drive is either not partitioned correctly, or it is not working correctly at all.

If the Master Boot Record is infected, we can spot that issue, if we install it as a slave drive. Let me know about that.