2 HDD crashes - or some nasty virus affecting lsass.exe

[onlycw]

How you'll doing?

Both notebooks only boot partially. Under XP, the message is

LSASS.EXE system error, wrong image file format, no initializing... does not begin with MZ

Under Win 7, I was watching a movie with the VLC Player. The movie crashed and there was just a loop of 3-4 seconds of the audio, repeating endlessly. again: "HDD won't initialize"or something similar.

It boots till the Windows squares appear (also in Safe Mode). But then, nothing, nada.

Any ideas? This is the 2nd notebook this happened to in a few days. Am needing this resolved for work...

Thank you in advance for any suggestions!

[Pib]

Since it happening to "both" of your laptops I would suspect malware. See this article about what lsass.exe is suppose to do in Windows and how virus programs can fake it. Link

[NeverSure]

Ouch. The MZ tag verifies it's a genuine Microsoft file. It's a network enabling file, but is corrupt or infected or spoofed with malware.

I'd try this. Do you know what key to press to get to the advanced start menu? Probably F8 but maybe F10 or F12 depending? Start the computer and hold down F8. See If you see Advanced Start Menu, disable "auto restart on system failure." If you can get it to start, run chkdsk.

If you can't get it to start, do a repair install with the original CD. If you can get it stable enough, run every common popular malware tool you have.

It could be a failing hard disk, malware, or a simple corrupt installation, or maybe something I haven't thought of.

If I had to bet I'd say malware.

Oops sorry Pib, typing while you posted.

[happynthailand]

just down load and run "Dr web cureit (free program)

it will find any mal-ware

should take care of your problem

[Chicog]

The problem with the more sophisticated malware is that it can hide itself from AV software.

You need to boot into a clean environment and then run a scan; I'd suggest that you download one of the rescue disks and burn them with IMGBURN or similar, a few links below. You may have to read the small print to get as up-to-date a signature file as you can.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/system-security/tp/free-bootable-antivirus-software.htm