Infected with virus i think

philip41 · 15 May 2008 at 16:51

Help please PC Infected with virus i think

Hi guys

could do with some advice for my main xp pro sp2 machine, i believe it has become infected.

The symptoms both in normal and in safe mode, first of all upon boot up all seems ok but then as all processes are loading the taskbar and the desktop icons disappear, this happens 2-3 times, then after this the task bar and icons stay gone, ctrl,alt and del still work, so looking in task manager i notice that explorer.exe process is no longer running.

In safe mode the message stating that windows is running in safe mode kept flashing up on screen even though i keep pressing the Yes button.

I am now in safe mode, i have got Nod32 running in a CMD window and it seems to be running a scan.

If i restart the explorer tast it just just down again.

Please advise if you can.

Conman · 15 May 2008 at 18:55

if anti virus does not pick up anything... it may not be the virus.

Losing task bar and start button has something to do with explorer. If you could turn it off in in task manager and everything load back ... then it is the explorer.

that s all i can help.

philip41 · 15 May 2008 at 19:12

Conman said:
if anti virus does not pick up anything... it may not be the virus.

Losing task bar and start button has something to do with explorer. If you could turn it off in in task manager and everything load back ... then it is the explorer.

that s all i can help.

Thanks, but as i say i can start it again via task manager but it immediately shuts off again.

Nod32 has not found anything so far, but is still scanning.

I am typing this and the above on another pc.

philip41 · 16 May 2008 at 07:33

Bump please, still the same situation.

Nod did not find anything.

bledd · 16 May 2008 at 07:49

open task manager, select New Task, then in the Run box type..

sfc /scannow

have your windows disc ready, it'll repair any broken files

have be worth using dial-a-fix too on it

philip41 · 16 May 2008 at 08:24

bledd. said:
open task manager, select New Task, then in the Run box type..

sfc /scannow

have your windows disc ready, it'll repair any broken files

have be worth using dial-a-fix too on it

thanks bledd, would i just put the disk in when asked to, or should it be in from the start?

Just googled dial-a-fix will give it a go if sfc fails to help.

Do you think it is more likely a corrupted file rather than Virus?

bledd · 16 May 2008 at 09:42

if nod32 didn't find anything, then it's unlikely there's a virus (still possible there is..) -was nod32 updated?

could even be a hardware issue, like bad ram, bad hard drive, bad psu, bad motherboard

i'd backup all your stuff if you've not done already, and maybe as a last resort, format

i've seen dial-a-fix work wonders before though

put put your xp disc in if it asks for it

philip41 · 16 May 2008 at 13:39

Hi bledd

Indeed nod32 found nowt, performed sfc then rebooted, was greeted with a nice blue stop error screen.

Luckily i have Acronis true image, have made good use of the rescue boot disk i made, all my info is safe now and have just restored the system back to a few months ago, bit of a pain but atleast it seems to have worked.

Fingers crossed, and a big thanks for your help.