need help please

redmenace1

Hi folks

My home pc Dell 4600 is in a sorry state & I would appreciate some advice.
It started about 3-4 weeks ago when it got a virus. I couldn't get rid of it so eventually it got to the stage where most of the prgrammes weren't working properly so I got some so-called professional help.
The expert called to the house & installed Malware removal in addition to AVG which I had been using. However despite getting the system back up & working it wasn't quite right.
Symtoms included shutting down, no access to Messenger etc.

Anyway last Friday, I did a full scan and get getting loads of virus warnings. I kept "deleting" the viruses.
Eventually the system shut itself down.

Now I have the following:
I go straight to my desktop but none of my icons are there & in fact I can do nothing at all. I can't activate task manager, can't log in as another user etc.
I have tried to re-boot and re-load XP but it wouldn't let me. Just the same frozen screen
Eventually I managed (don't quite know how:o, think got in through f2 or f12 keys) to get to do some hard-drive tests and all appeared in order. This took hours!!
I then managed to start up in safe mode and did a back up of some recent files (I have everything else on external drive). I ran anti-virus again and there was still some stuff in there which I deleted.
Of couse when i tried to re-boot I was brought back to the desktop with nothing on it.

A few other symtoms:
It asks for password
Can't log on as other users
Of course when I re-booted again
I know the original virus "CS" is still lurking there and I am content to try & fix that if I can get up and running again. Or perhaps that is the problem.

Anyway I can't afford to pay someone else to look at the PC and would appreciate any advice.

ActorSeeksJob

can you run this ?

Download ComboFix from one of these locations:

Link 1
Link 2


* IMPORTANT !!! Save ComboFix.exe to your Desktop

• Disable your AntiVirus and AntiSpyware applications, usually via a right click on the System Tray icon. They may otherwise interfere with our tools. If you don't know how to disable them then just continue on.
  
  
• Double click on ComboFix.exe & follow the prompts.
  
  
• As part of it's process, ComboFix will check to see if the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console is installed. With malware infections being as they are today, it's strongly recommended to have this pre-installed on your machine before doing any malware removal. It will allow you to boot up into a special recovery/repair mode that will allow us to more easily help you should your computer have a problem after an attempted removal of malware.
  
  
• Follow the prompts to allow ComboFix to download and install the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console, and when prompted, agree to the End-User License Agreement to install the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console.

**Please note: If the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console is already installed, ComboFix will continue it's malware removal procedures.

Once the Microsoft Windows Recovery Console is installed using ComboFix, you should see the following message:




Click on Yes, to continue scanning for malware.

When finished, it shall produce a log for you. Please include the C:\ComboFix.txt log in your next reply.

redmenace1

Ok thanks I will give this a go this evening. But last night I couldn't even boot in safe mode, just straight to log-in and then desktop.

So I need to figure that out too. Thanks, I will post tomorrow or later depending on how things go!

zenno

after doing what actorseeksjob told you. restart the pc. as soon as it is starting up keep pressing the F2 button until it brings you into the bios. when in the bios look for boot options. you then have to make your optical/cd drive the first boot drive. press the up or down arrow keys on the keyboard to highlight the optical/cd drive when the cd drive is highlighted use the U or D key to move the cd drive to the top for first boot device then press enter to save, then save and exit. when the pc loads up put in the windows xp disc. then restart the pc and when it asks "PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE" press any key. then wait till the disc loads. when loaded it will give you options to install windows xp or recovery console press r for recovery console. let it load and you will get a black screen with c:/ flashing on the screen. type this in CHKDSK and press enter. let it scan the operating system and it will install any files that are corrupted. only when it has finished type in EXIT and press enter and the pc will restart. this time do not press any key to continue when it is loading just let it start windows. hopefully that will fix any system or file errors. if you can then manage to get into windows xp ok i would recommend you download malwarebytes straight away and run it to remove any virus/spyware on the system. hope that helps PS. if it asks you for a password after entering recovery mode just press enter.

zenno

one more thing, going by the way the pc is having trouble starting up how old is the pc you might need a new bios battery installed. could be the bios battery is wasting. just a tought.