I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

[CN Spots]

It got hit with that stupid XP Security center Virus thing so I restored it to a few months ago and I guess that was too far. Hardly anything works now. System Restore, Help/Support and AutoUpdate will not load. Windows Update launches IE & it says that it can not display the web page. Most of the desktop icons are gone. When I try to launch Safari it says "bad parameter". Firefox will only run in safemode. IE runs ok but all of the toolbars are blank.

Malwarebytes was able to remove a bunch of stuff and scans clear now but the Malwarebytes Security Center is nowhere to be found.

I've tried everything that I can think of which isn't much. Any ideas? Thanks.

Dell Optiplex 360
Windows XP Pro V2002
Service Pack 3

 

[dlindeblad]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

did you format the HD and then use system restore disks?

 

[PiratePast40]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

I've had a virus similar to that several times in the past. What I've found is, it's best to archive all your important files to another location as soon as possible.

I've spend weeks doing reinstalls and repairs and it's never quite right with some program, upgrade, or something that won't install right. You can then try all the recovery and repair that you want, but it'll be best to go ahead and do a complete format and reinstall.

This is one of those cases of not "if" but "when" it's going to happen. An occasional fresh reinstall is a good thing anyway.

 

[ezmobee]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

You're going to need to backup your data, format the drive and reinstall. These types of virus mess with your system files and settings so that often even after the virus or malware is removed, the damage remains.

 

[BuzzStPoint]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

I've been fixing this one in a few computers lately. Probably 6 of them this past month. You dont need to format and restore.

Get yourself a flash drive.
On a clean PC Download a few tools.

ccleaner portable.
Spybot search and destroy
malwarebytes antimalware.

Install spybot on the clean PC and update it.
Go to the programs folder and copy the whole Spybot folder to the flash drive.
Put the malwarebytes installer on the flash drive along with the ccleaner.

Boot the infected pc to safe mode. Run ccleaner and clean out all temp files.
Now run Spybot using SDmain.exe on the flash drive. Remove bad/infected files and registry entries. It will ask you to reboot. (DO NOT REBOOT). Push and hold the power button till it shuts off. Now start up in safemode with networking. Install malwarebytes and update it. Run ccleaner again and scan with malwarebytes full scan.
Clean any infections you may have.

Once this is done, reboot to normal mode and do quick scans on all user profiles with antimalware you have on the PC. Your PC is now clean. If you noticed that it looks like all your documents are gone. Don't panic. Some variants are hiding them. There is a utility that reverses this.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

Go here, set up an account and run the test described in the sticky at the top and post your results.

http://www.techspot.com/vb/menu28.html

 

[scipper77]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

You're going to need to backup your data, format the drive and reinstall. These types of virus mess with your system files and settings so that often even after the virus or malware is removed, the damage remains.

+1, the only true fix. The more you mess with the registry the worse it gets. The amount of time it takes to fix the registry if you could, you may as well just backup, format, ans reinstall the OS. It will run much better on a fresh install than it did before the virus, I promise you.

 

[dan4081]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

Do EXACTLY what is posted in post #5 and you will be fine.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

I have the aforementioned anti bug apps downloaded to a flash drive and I'll give it a shot tonight or this weekend. I don't have another pc to update the spybot on so I'll have to run it as downloaded and hope that it will work. I signed up on techspot too. Thanks for all of the help so far!

 

[bruceb58]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

Do EXACTLY what is posted in post #5 and you will be fine.

If he is lucky he would be fine. I wouldn't count on it though.

 

[scipper77]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

Just typed a long detailed responce and pressed the wrong button and deleted it (arghh). So instead let me just say that patching a virus infected computer will never return it to the state of a fresh install. I am a veteran at this and you can fix a broken registry etc... but only a fresh install will be like it never happened. And it takes about the same amount of time after your data is backed up.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

^^^^^^ +1
I have gone the repair route and probably spent more total hours over a given time than doing a fresh install.

Not only does reformatting get rid of the virus for good but your computer will run faster than ever. Just be sure to image your hard drive after you reinstall the OS, its patches and all your programs. That makes it 10 times easier the next time you start from scratch.

 

[CN Spots]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

I an sooo close to throwing a match on this thing. I borrowed an external hard drive, plugged it in, the little thing popped up saying that it installed software and was now ready to use and... nothing. I can't find it anywhere. "My Computer" only lists the C drive and the CD drive. Under "install hardware" it sees it and says it is ready to use but I don't know where it is. Same thing for the flash drive. Has something been turned off that shows external drives? I took the drive to work and erased/reformatted it for MS dos (the only format option Mac's give you other than Mac OS) and I'm going to try it again tonight.

If I could get my hands on the little weasels that write these things...

 

[scooper77515]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

Get yourself a flash drive.
On a clean PC Download a few tools.

ccleaner portable.
Spybot search and destroy
malwarebytes antimalware.

I do this all the time at work, so yes, do what is described in post #5. This will fix 95% of the computers.

Only occasionally do I have to reformat and start over.

I just got one a couple days ago (infected computer, not a bug, I have NEVER gotten a virus!) that was similar, as it was a fake alert type bug, but this one was the first I have seen that actually reported that the RAM and hard drive were about to fail!

Same kinda thing, same method of cleaning it up, Was actually easier to remove than the one you got. Took about 10 minutes.

Only thing I can add is when doing what is listed in post #5, keep the computer OFF the internet until you are done with the scans. Once the bugs start to communicate through the internet connection, your computer could slow WAY down and it may take forever to clean it up.

Also, some of these bugs actually uninstall or hide your malwarebytes and virus protection. So you will likely have to reinstall them.

 

[scooper77515]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

Download and install Linux Ubuntu 10.10, then never worry or mess with viruses, malware, etc. again.

I run it on all my computers, and i love to watch those bugs try to install. They go through the motions, warnings pop up, etc. I just ignore them and move along. No infections.

No virus protection running in background eating up my RAM. No defrag, no registry cleaner, no ccleaner, etc. Just surf and shut down. No worries.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

What happened with the techspot site? Did you post your problem there?

 

[CN Spots]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

I was going to try what was posted here first (techspot mentions Buzz's suggestions to the letter) but I still can not get this external drive to load so I can back up the files, or the flash drive to install the fixit apps. I already had Malwarebytes on here and it seems to have rid it of the bug, it's just acting like the system software is scrambled.
Still trying stuff...

 

[bruceb58]

Re: I've gone and wrecked the Admiral's computer.

techspot mentions Buzz's suggestions to the letter.

Not quite.

Temporary File Cleaner
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware
GMER
DDS

You then submit your logs and then they can look at them and they usually have you do eset32(online) and combofix after that.

The people that help you on that site have seen it all.