Help with Virus

My daughter has managed to get a virus on my laptop which has completely wiped it out, it won't start windows, it won't do anything. Its an acer aspire laptop and I worked out it has a partition from googling and did the Alt F10 thing which seemed to work a dream, did a restore to factory defaults etc. etc. but it then started to load windows, I had to choose my location,enter username and password etc. etc. and then nothing, just a blue screen (which is the windows backdrop) and nothing. I've taken the battery out after about 2 hours, restarted the computer and it did the same again and has now been sitting at this blue screen for an hour or so, should I do Alt F10 again? or am I just suppose to wait it out? Cheers for your help Take care, Laura xx

 

I've actually done the Alt F10 thing again and it did seem to get a bit further, it went into the 'windows is checking your systemfor performance' type screen which it didn't do before and then said it was going to restart. It restarted and now after loading up again and entering the username and password for windows, it is now just blue screen with a black box in the middle, in the black box it says 'recover' and refers to a file cmd.exe but its been on that screen for about 20 minutes now.

Not sure whether to do Alt F10 again and see if it gets any further?! Any ideas? Take care, Laura xx

 

Right before the computer attempts to boot, Press F8 (repeatedly to be sure) and it should let you do safe mode. Have you tried that?

 

OK do you have back ups of files? ( this may not matter if you don't since the virus or problem with broken files may not be recoverable if you do not)

DO you have Vista or Windows 7 install disks, even if they are upgrades you should be able to do a clean install

Do you have disks for the software you use?

Try f8 while the system starts up first and choose safe mode first and see if you boot it in this, if so you can do a system restore, I would do that to restore it back to a week ago.

If you have already done a reinstall with the partition and its still a mess then the partition may be infected as well which means you need to format the entire drive deleting the partition. This will mean you will have to have all the needed software on disk (CD or DVD's)

 

I don't have any software, I bought the computer second hand about a year ago and have NEVER had any problems with it whatsoever. I managed to do the Alt F10 again and have got into windows, but when it goes into windows it says 'windows has recovered from a fatal error' and asks if I want to go online for help, I just click cancel and then have the main windows screen with icons, but when I try to click in the 'button' at the bottom that you normally click (bottom left hand corner) which gives you the main menu, you just have a little circle appear which is constantly whizzing round and won't let you do anything, I've tried clicking on the icons on the home page but nothing happens then either? So I don't have any disks, what is the best thing I can do. My friend has a Windows XP disk I could use and thelaptop has a windows XP key on the bottom of it, but not sure if that would help me at this stage and how do I get it to reinstall? or do you think it wont help? Take care,Laura x

 

I have managed to get it to load in 'safe mode' what do I do now? Take care, Laura xx

 

Can I do a system restore even though I've done the Alt F10 and restored all factory defaults?

 

I don't have any 'restore points' I just checked xx

 

Just realised this computer is on Windows Vista, my friend has Windows XP disk but not Vista!

 

Hmm, what I'm worried about is the Virus or malware is in the partition as well, drivers are easy and can be downloaded so all you need is Vista Sp1

I would try and see if anyone you know has a copy of Vista with an valid activation there is another way,

if its a vista machine you can fix this by also getting a copy of Windows 7 upgrade, I know its expensive since I have not seen the upgrade $49 offer,

If you are a student or have child in college or know one in college, they can get Windows 7 home premium for $29 and download it through the internet.

( takes about 2 to 3 hours to download Cable/DSL because its 2.3 GB)

In the store like Staples or Office depot its about $119 retail. ( Upgrade) there is a way to use the upgrade with a clean install.

Now one other thing I can think of is to try first get a copy of malware bytes and when you go into safe mode run use the copy you have off oa flash drive or burned cd and run the program, it may find the problem if its a Malware, you can also try a scan with a antivirus but sometimes these things do not work.

I'm really sorry maybe someone else here will come up with another idea

I usually format and reinstall with these problems.

 

I'm in the UK, but would you say the best thing to do is get Windows 7 and upgrade it? how do I download through the internet? and can I do that in safe mode as computer doesn't seem to work unless I'm in safe mode, thanks for your help so far....

 

I can't seem to get on the internet in safe mode, I'll try restarting the computer again in normal mode x

 

If you can afford Windows 7 upgrade ( the student offer I know of is in the US I do not know of one in the UK, you could try google for that?)
then you would simply start the computer and f12 choose to boot from cd/dvd and then hit a key when prompted to, the rest is here:

How to

most reports are that it works well without doing anything but choosing the clean install method as normal with the options menu on the win 7 upgrade disk

 

I've restarted the machine, it came up with norton info and I just clicked next that disappeared and now when I click the little icon in bottom left hand of screen again to try and get main menu to pop up it just starts whirring and little thing keeps going round, after about 5 minutes the backdrop of the menu appeared but there is no actual icons showing on it.. I'll keep waiting a little longer, so if I can connect do I just go to microsoft.com and download windows 7 - computer seems very slow though

 

The left hand icons have come up now - internet / email / windows media player etc. etc. and then after another few minutes the right hand icons have come up, it seems to be 'working' but excruitiatingly slow

 

So basically computer seems to be 'working' as such but is painstakingly slow, so what is the best course of action, wipe hard disk and start again with fresh copy of windows vista, or try and connect to internet and download windows 7 upgrade? Not sure what to do for best? Take care, Laura x

 

the computer seems to also be making an intermittent whirring noise, every 5 seconds very quietly but whirring none the less and I haven't actually managed to get it to load anything yet, I'm able to get the menu now, but whatever I click doesn't actually load

 

I just had a look online but will cost me around £80, it is frustrating as computer appears to be working?! and loads the windows screen now and I have all icons back etc. etc. but it just won't actually load any programs! Is there any other ways of fixing it without upgrading to windows 7? Is it worth me instsalling Windows XP over the top of it? Take care,Laura x

 

OK now I'm not sure its a virus but something else like a bad hard drive.

If you read this, I think honestly you may want to take it to a shop or if you have friend who can do diagnostic on the hardware.

Many times people blame viruses for hardware failure.

I would hate for you spend money on the wrong thing.

 

first things first download these three files and run them
ComboFix
Super Antispyware
Malwarebytes
After these run then try a chkdsk like drfp suggested.
Hope this helps

 

Yes I mentioned Malwarebytes too I agree with all three also, these things cost nothing

do the cost nothing first