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Possible virus -- need help

1K views 7 replies 3 participants last post by  lnshukla 
#1 ·
I believe my desktop PC to be infected with some type of virus, but I am uncertain. To make matters worse, I can't get to the internet on it, and running programs of any sort can be a hassle. (and seeing as I don't have Hijackthis installed on it, nor can I install it likely, obtaining a log is highly unlikely)

These are my symptoms:

1. Slower startup, even explorer.exe takes forever and a day to start
2. Shutdown of svchost.exe the moment I do startup "has generated errors and will be closed by Windows." - and this is before my start menu even shows up. Sometimes the message displays twice.
3. Unable to cut/copy and paste files at all.
4. Error message displaying the following: "The system process 'C:\\WINNT\system32\services.exe' terminated unexpectedly with status code 128. The system will now shut down and restart." From there, I have a 60 second countdown. However this I can prevent just by changing the date on my PC.

I've tried to run McAffee to scan, but the program never runs. Firefox neither - it "generates errors" and is shut down shortly. McAffee doesn't even do that - the exe just runs for a second or two then shuts down.

Any advice greatly appreciated, God bless.

-Ion
 
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#2 ·
If you're comfortable doing this:

Take the hard drive out and slave it to another system. Run an virus scan of the drive (whatever is installed on the host system, or use an online scan like antivirus.com).

This may clean out enough (if there is an malware) to allow you to do more booting to that drive.
 
#5 ·
While this may be true for a case of "broken windows", if the damage is due to malware, then a repair install will ultimately fail.

Ionhelen

Sine you only have a laptop, you could purchase an external hard drive enclosure. They're pretty cheap, and will allow you to connect the drive to your laptop via a USB cable. Then you can perform an antivirus scan.

However, looks like I missed something. Can you boot into Safe Mode (tap F8 repeatedly right after you turn your pc on)? If so, is it stable enough to run an antivirus scan?
 
#6 ·
I am not sure but many malwares are not detected by AntiVirus scans. Moreover, if you have a boot sector virus you can not clean it with any antivirus (to the best of my knowledge). Low level format or zero filling are the only options left (if supported by motherboard).

Before everything else, Safe Mode is definitely the first option to try.

Originaly posted by Chevy:
Sine you only have a laptop, you could purchase an external hard drive enclosure.
Even to run an antivirus scan you don need to purchase a separate hard disk. Try the following Bart's PE:

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Also, if you have McAfee's DOS Scanner (This option was there till McAfee 7.0, I am not sure about higher versions) and a bootable CD or Floppy, you can boot your machine and run this scanner.
 
#7 ·
Sine you only have a laptop, you could purchase an external hard drive enclosure. They're pretty cheap, and will allow you to connect the drive to your laptop via a USB cable. Then you can perform an antivirus scan.

However, looks like I missed something. Can you boot into Safe Mode (tap F8 repeatedly right after you turn your pc on)? If so, is it stable enough to run an antivirus scan?[/QUOTE]

I can boot in Safe Mode, and have, but I still encounter the restart countdown and am still unable to move files.

Looks as if my best shot may be a format and reinstall, seeing as the external hard drive enclosure is unlikely (I'm 17 living with parents still; most of my purchases are reliant on parental approval and, often, funding ><)
 
#8 ·
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