Virus!!!! Help!!

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

On the desktop. They popped up again about the same time the screen went blue.

[5614]

On the desktop. They popped up again about the same time the screen went blue.

i assume you are talking about the normal every day desktop icons, (not ZA icons) what happened with ZA, did it work?

 

when it went blue, did it just go blue and freeze? or was there an error message? what was the last thing you did before it went blue?

 

RUN A SCAN DISK OR CHECK DISK OR WTVR YOU WANNA CALL IT, THIS COULD JUST BE A CORRUPT DISK.... IT IS THE NEXT ESSENTIAL THING YOU MUST DO.

 

other than that, try another anti-virus and scan... my friend said that AVG isnt too amazing at scans.

online scanners:

http://www.bitdefender.com/scan/licence.php

http://www.ravantivirus.com/scan/

http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm

i say the last one's best.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

OK... Yes, all of the icons on the desktop were gone. Then in about five minutes it just spontaneously turned blue, with no apparent reason. Everything else kept working.

[5614]

ohhhh, you mean the desktop itself turned blue, i thought you meant the computer crashed or something! well just right click and change it back, that was just a setting defaulting itself, this is common in safe mode.... although should all happen in the beggining, so thats a bit wierd, really use those links and if you still dont find nothing you must do a chk dsk or check disk or scan disk!

 

after you have done that, assuming your problem isnt fixed (if it this thread ends) remind me to tell you about fixing XP from the disk (just incase).

 

by the way, do you have SP2?

could this be related?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That wasn't in safe mode. And I couldn't change it back. Nothing happened when I tried.

 

No, I don't.

[5614]

well ok, i appreciate this all takes time to do, so post again when youve run the virus online anti-virus scans and done a check disk.

 

even if you got a virus which was brand new when you got it - meaning that NO AV in the world could have stopped it, there will be protection for it now, one of those onliners should have the correct update... then do the check disk just to check the disks themselves for errors in the data (remember, tick all options and it will do it on the reboot)

 

if neither of those works theres a windows XP repair feature, which repairs possibly upset windows OS features, however it is unlikely this is your problem due to the fact that you would have got an error message saying something like "XP is buggered, plz fix it!" or words to that effect.

NB: if you do get any error messages, take a print screen or something so we can see it, every one helps!... click get technical detail and all of that, get the interesting stuff!

[5614]

i just had a similar incident, though with a possible trojan, heres what happened / i did:

 

norton internet security 2003 proffessional (incl AV)

 

i notice that intrusion detection has stopped working

disconnect myself from internet/network to stop hackers and possible spread of possible thread

cannot activate intrusion detection due to my windows account (XP) not having permission - crap, i am the only admin!

run every scan i have (spyware and AVs etc)

[nothing is found]

re-instal norton

intrusion detection works

run auto-update

intrusion detection dont work

(same thing all over again)

assume that it is the update (i have a payed for copy but have not registered as it was still within my first free year - if that makes a difference)

get avast 4

scan = nothing

same thing happens with norton 2003 again (update = no intrusion detection)

upgrade to norton internet security 2005 professional (incl. AV)

all is fine!

 

anyway; capn what happened with your computer?

[Dave]

You might also want to consider the fact that it may be a hardware problem. I'd do the usual: check your RAM, look inside the computer, make sure it's not getting too hot, etc. If at all possible, back up your data or make an image of the hdd onto another computer, reformat and start again. Chances are that if you're still having these problems after a fresh install, it's a hardware problem and you need to get it looked at professionaly, or, worst case scenario, replaced.

[5614]

whilst you have a point, from the problem description of a single program being effectively disabled and you can re-install etc it is unlikely to have an actual hardware failure, although i did suggest scan disk for chk dsk as HDD errors to occur sometimes. chk dsk will not have any risks and cannot go wrong and is very useful, even if you dont have problems you should do it every once in a while.

[5614]

what happened to the computer with the possible virus on cap'n??????

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

It's still wacky in the sense that the desktop and icons dissapear, but other than that it's fine.

[Sayonara]

Windows does that sometimes anyway, on XP and 2K.

 

Does it happen a lot?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Every time it boots up, there are no icons. Five minutes later the desktop goes blue and the icons appear.

[5614]

may be some form of spyware or something.

 

recently (when i got broadband) i formatted my 2nd (family) computer. it was all fine and nice and fast. already (a month of two later) it is totaly screwed up. icons change randomly and most icons are just black squares... others normal... spyware scans (spybot, spyware doctor & adaware (all up to date)) dont get nothing, neither does panda or norton 03 (both up to date) AVs.

 

so ive got no idea, however soon my bro is getting his own computer, so thats in for its 2nd format this 1/2 of the year!

 

as i dont use that computer ever, i havent looked further into the problem.