virus help needed

Post by **computathug** » 15 Jun 2007, 02:18

here's my problem:-

a couple of days ago someone dropped a pc off for repair with a virus on it and i dont have any idea the name of the virus only that when the pc is booted all is in working order until windows loaded then all icons on desktop disappear and neither mouse clicks work, no start menu or tool bar.

the person who's pc it is said the problems started after downloading limewire which was of no shock to me as we all know about the problems it can cause with malware etc.

this person needed there pc bk pretty fast for college work or what ever and luckily for them all there work was saved anyway so easy enough just linked it up to my network to see if i could remove the virus then thought forget this just format and reload xp to save time.

now my problem is the virus has reached 1 of my other pc's on my network which isnt any problem but i would like to bew able to get into the system if possible and remove it without reformat etc.

i have tried rebooting in safe mode etc and get the same effects

thanks guys

Post by **bad_brain** » 15 Jun 2007, 04:19

hm, to boot a Linux live distro and remove the malware from there would be an option, but not in this case because without knowing what virus it is it's impossible to remove the right files.
if you have another PC you could connect the HDD of the infected box there and scan it with a good AV, but of course you would have to be very cautious to not infect that box too....so don't access the HDD directly and only use safe mode.

off-topic: check the chess thread

Post by **ayu** » 15 Jun 2007, 04:48

Have you tried reaching the taskmanager with CTRL+ALT+DEL ?

Post by **Big-E** » 15 Jun 2007, 13:08

B_B's suggestion is probably the best bet, for my college dorm I was the network guy and I was responsible for removing virus' when a computer was infected. Luckily most people downloaded from the University network and rarely got virus', but there was a few times when MSN worms went around I was left with removal of the virus. I had two boxes set up in my room and one was d/c from the network anyway, so I always connected the HD from the computers into an external hard drive and attempted to remove them this way. I found this was a better process as when you boot off the hard drive the virus' is often hidden. Anyway, best of luck with that. Oh yeah, I used the following for virus removal
Kaspersky - http://www.kaspersky.com/
AVG Pro - http://www.grisoft.com/
AdAware Pro -http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/ada ... fessional/
Spybot Search and Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/
Hijackthis - http://www.merijn.org/index.php

The ones that where expensive where purchased for my through the University IT department.

Basically, I didn't always use all of them on the same machine but if it was bad enough I ran them all and had great success. Some find some things better where others don't work so well. If each of those where a venn diagram, they would cover a large portion of all malware/virus/spyware infections.

Post by **computathug** » 22 Jun 2007, 01:29

neo130 wrote:Have you tried reaching the taskmanager with CTRL+ALT+DEL ?

yes neo and this is a function the pc will let me do but i cannot access any thing else. i have checked processes and have found nothing unfamilliar

also to big -e i always use spybot, adaware, advance windows care, hijack this, zonealrm firewall and avg but looks like this 1 is goin to get the better of me and just redo the pc.

if it was on a different pc in the house i would leave it there till i found a solution but as its my main pc im going to forget it for now but thanks any way guys

Post by **Gogeta70** » 22 Jun 2007, 03:25

Well... when you tried safe mode, did you see anything at the bottom that said "Loading *****.sys press esc to cancel"? If that's the case, it's probably the virus integrating itself into safe mode. Also, try and see if you can find an antivirus that boots off of a cd, i found one before but i can't remember.. sorry.

Post by **bad_brain** » 22 Jun 2007, 04:12

the Inside Security Rescue Toolkit (INSERT) is a Linux live distro specialized for virus removal (full write support for NTFS), it's based on Knoppix and uses Clam Antivirus:
http://www.inside-security.de/INSERT_en.html

mystikblaze · Post by **mystikblaze** » 22 Jun 2007, 15:16

Post by **ayu** » 22 Jun 2007, 15:19

mystikblaze wrote:one word: antivirus

If he could, he probably would ;/