Bad Image error suddenly appeared!!!

So I've had my new HP Dv6T laptop for a couple months now and have been generally happy with it. The other day I turned on the machine and got an bad image error for my AVG antivirus software. The error stated that the .exe for AVG that was trying to load on startup wasn't a windows file. I hit okay and got an additional 3 errors for AVG. The error said it had to deal with windows/version.dll. So i immediatly tried getting on the internet to see what this .dll error was and to my surprise explorer would not work either. the windows explorer box would come up but it would stay blank. Tried a couple restarts and no joy. I was able to get into windows like normal but what i came to realize was that anything that had a .exe that needed to be run(ex: office,photoshop,avg, microsoft live mesenger) all drew the same bad image version.dll error. So last night after transfering all of my pictures and personal files over to an external hard drive i threw in my honest to god legit copy of windows xp in an attempt to reformat thinking it might be a virus. Well you guessed it the setup.exe won't run and draws the same bad image version.dll isn't a windows file error!!!!! So then I rolled up my sleeve and booted straight from the cd. The install got about 10 minutes into it's thing when all the sudden i get an error saying the install could not continue from a problem that could be caused by a virus/ bad sector on the hard drive/ or some other options and to run chkscn /F. I haven't had a chance to run the scan this morning or even try getting in to recovery and simply reformatting the harddrive the old way.

My question is this. Has anyone experienced a problem like this before? Do you think it's a virus problem or a hard drive problem? I've tried to search online and not really finding much info on this particular problem so any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Yeah sounds like you got hit by a virus. Might wanna switch to Avira or Avast.

 

well if it truly is a virus it's the worst one i've ever come across!!!

 

Oh sorry i just re-read your original post. It was a little hard to read.

Its more likely the hard drive failing than a virus.

Do you have any Live cd's that you can use to run a HD integrity scan and check for SMART health monitor?

 

No i don't. I have attempted to download various malware removal programs from another computer but again anything with the .exe won't run and it all comes back to the windows/version.dll problem

 

first: make sure all your data is save on some external disk, then continue with anything else. if the disk fails, it may fail very hard and quick, so get off your data before anything else.

then try a checkdisk on the system drive during the boot.

 

Yup i was able to get all my important stuff off the drive. I started running the checkdisk last night but it was late and so i cancelled the check. I'll run the test at lunch today and see what mysteries i can uncover. Freakin junk they put in computers!!!

 

So in looking at Newegg i saw many a choices for hard drives . I've never had to buy a laptop HD before although several years ago i was into building my own computers. From the list what seems to be a good harddrive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...010150380 1035915133 1035507776&name=7200 RPM

 

So here is your afternoon update. After lunch I ran the hard disk test. Both quick and full test ran without any errors. I then thought about signing in as admin(as anyone using Vista knows you have to allow the hidden admin account to be shown via command prompt). I did and after signing in as an admin I attempted to replace the existing version.dll file that has been the source of my trouble. This was a dying cause as even though I had admin rights I did not have permission to move, rename, or replace the version.dll file. I finally resorted to using HP's system recovery and just finished reformatting my harddrive to it's factory setting. We'll see if the problem fixes itself. If not my next step is to wipe the drive again and install windows xp pro until windows 7 comes out. WHAT A FREAKIN MESS!

 

If you were to get a hard drive from Newegg, I would probably go for one of the Western Digital drives. On a previous PC message board that I went to, almost everyone recommended WD drives, purely because of their quality, and the fact that they are a reputable company. Seagate are also a good option, but since they've had a lot of failures at one point, I probably wouldn't get one from them.

 

Well i was able to get windows to reinstall no problem. I guess either a virus or something with windows currupted a file. All is better now!