Gah!! More malware but cant boot into Safe Mode?!

DoubleCheese · 4 Jun 2011 at 14:27

A work machine has a XP Recovery malware problem stating the HDD is fubar'd but can be repaired with a Credit Card number....

Its a HP DC5100 tower and it won't boot into Safe Mode by pressing f8, I just get a keybaord error. The only keys that work are F1, F9 and F10 which just go to setup and boot potions.

Is it possibel to get to Safe Mode with the XP disc in the CD-ROM drive?

Craig321 · 4 Jun 2011 at 14:31

Have you switched on USB keyboard support in the BIOS? That should allow you to go into safe mode. Failing that, stick a PS/2 keyboard in.

You could do it the nasty way and shut down the PC forcefully on the XP loading screen which will then cause the recovery options to automatically come up on next boot.

DoubleCheese · 4 Jun 2011 at 14:53

Ah! Dud keyboard connection was the problem. Running Malwarebytes now, only 15 issues so far.

Craig321 · 4 Jun 2011 at 15:05

DoubleCheese said:
Ah! Dud keyboard connection was the problem. Running Malwarebytes now, only 15 issues so far.

Only?

DoubleCheese · 4 Jun 2011 at 16:53

Craig321 said:
Only?

39 in the end! Worryingly though the Start bar has nothing in it, as if there are no applications installed, the Desktop has been swept clean like a fesh install and all the My Documents folders are "empty".

Changing the view settings to see hidden files everything other than the Start menu is viewable, though not like normal, the files are all greyed out but clickable.

System Restore fails....urgh.

Backup and re-install time I feel. :mad:

fleming222 · 4 Jun 2011 at 20:22

That's a nasty one.
I wonder what someone was trying to do at work which caused that thing to creep in

DoubleCheese · 5 Jun 2011 at 00:06

He was just browsing the local football team site, NCFC, when the warning dialogue boxes started popping up and the machine quickly became useless.

Gixer · 5 Jun 2011 at 00:27

I too had this but it was called Win7 recovery as I have windows 7. I have a fair few desktop shortcuts and the prog must be set to delete X amount as only half of mine dissapeared. Just populate the task bar again yourself and u then need to find the files it has hidden. There are some extra registry edits you will need to do that Malwarebytes wont do. You'll find these listed on various sites if you look for instructions on how to manually remove it.