Hey all, I hope this is the right forum to put this in. I desperately need help. I have a MacBook with Leopard and I'm running Parallels with Windows XP. I have a virus on the XP side. Now, I can't log on to Windows. The virus is the log on log off loop or perhaps I should say that is a symptom of the virus. I'm having issues getting in touch with Parallels support. Does anyone have the solution or suggestions on what to do? PLEASE HELP!!!!

Debbie D.

I think the standard procedure is to erase and reinstall Windows at this point. I'm surprised you didn't have a good anti-virus app installed and up to date.

You'll have to start in Safe Boot mode, fn+F8, or maybe just keep tapping F8.

To get rid of the virus though you'd have to have a CD ready with some anti-virus software to install. AVG Free is a good start.

Google xp log on log off loop to get more tips on removing the malware, could be a number of things.

I have AVG Free installed BEFORE I got the virus. I selected a link from FaceBook opened in Safari and that was all it took. It automatically started Parallels and Windows and it went haywire from there. I've already reinstalled Windows, so what I really need is my documents and my outlook file. I just don't know how to find those. It's not like taking the hard drive out of a pc and putting it in an external enclosure. I can do that, but I can't just go in and access files. Any suggestions on this end?


Debbie D.

Did you try Safe Boot?

Boot from the CD and select repair when it comes up with the install options. Doubt it's a virus, sounds more like a crippled system file or a registry entry got lost.

She did say she reinstalled Windows though. Wouldn't do the same thing plus a bit more? I know enough about Windows to be dangerous.

I didn't see Debbie's second post.

Odd how it could launch Parallels like that. Ether way there should be a way to mount the virtual partition. If you cant mount it with in OSX why not create a second virtual system and mount the virtual partition that has the files you want as a secondary slave partition?

I can see mounting it as a slave when in windows, in other words making a new Windows partition, boot from it, then access the problem partition to get the data.

I don't know if it's possible to mount the .hdd image on X natively yet.

I did it a couple of years ago but it involved first converting the .hdd to one format, then to another, so the Finder could mount it read only, then I was able to recover the customer's Quickbooks file. It took hours to do the conversions. I had to temporarily install some kernel extensions to read and manipulate the formats. I had some notes, I'll have to see if I can find them. I'm just wondering if there's not an easier way now, I haven't ran across the need to since then.