virus is stopping programs loading.

[sswats]

I think the pc has a virus.
Its a Sony vaio laptop so the hard drive is a PITA to get out to scan on another system.

Anyway windows loads but nearly every program i try to load i get a dos window open and close quickly. Even in safe mode.

managed to get process explorer to run and when i do try to load a program i get ntvdm.exe listed next t it then quickly dissapears and the program doesn't load. don't know if ntvdm is normally like that.

couldn't get mcafee to load or malwarebytes,spybot, hijackthis etc to run scans.

Any ideas on what steps to take, leaving reformat as my last resort.

 

[bledd]

get the avira resuce cd iso from here, and try that..

http://www.avira.com/en/support/support_downloads.html

 

[osc89er]

a resource cd is a great idea. i didn't know any of the AV vendors did one.

Other things you can try to kill the offending process:
Boot into safe mode and hope the virus isn't loaded.
Try renaming the process explorer program and then running it.