I got a comp Virus!

[1stdeadeye]

Help. I have a virus in my Boot sector. When I run Symantec (norton), it freezes up after 513 files reviewed.

Help?

[1stdeadeye]

How do you utilize the ChkDsk utility in Windows XP?

[Rob218]

I'm no expert, but check your running processes and find out what's going on? Or boot up in safe mode then scan. Those are the easiest things.

If you see something in the processes that is strange, do a search of the .exe and see what it is. If you can, end the process, go to the folder and delete it. Again, I'm no expert

[1stdeadeye]

I'm no expert, but check your running processes and find out what's going on? Or boot up in safe mode then scan. Those are the easiest things.

I can't boot up in safe mode. As it is a boot sector virus. When I shut the comouter down, it takes forever to restart it. It keeps defaulting on start over and over again till if finally boots up.

[Rob218]

Ok, well I've got no idea. May the virus killing gods be with you and your computer...

Edit - What did your mom ever tell you about looking at porn..

[Tunaman]

I have used a program called Partition Magic which allows you to rebuild your boot sector on the fly. It really worked well then, but i dunno if they make it for XP. Check it out. It may save you from the dreaded C:\format.

[SeeK]

Boot sector viruses can be gotten rid of with a boot floppy or CD-R/RW.

You may need to change your BIOS (F2 or Esc key when first turn on) to boot from the CD or Floppy before the Hard Drive.

Try these:

http://www.bootdisk.com/utility.htm

Once you have cleaned up the boot disk virus you can then go into the BIOS and check if there is an option to prevent writing to the boot sector (Some BIOS have this).

Be sure to unplug from your network so you don't get reinfected with something from the internet. You can then do the other stuff to check the services and kill (end task) anything that sounds funny or you don't recognize (www.google.com is good for this). A bunch of spybots detect the scanners and prevent them from working. This is a good program to view and save the process list. http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr.../procexp.shtml Run, save and post the contents here and I can help you identify the bad stuff.

You should then be able to continue with the Symantic virus scan. Then connect to the net to get updated virus definitions and rescan. Then get spybot search & destroy (free) http://www.safer-networking.org/ and adaware (free) http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/and update and scan with both those.

Also go to http://www.doxdesk.com/parasite/ to see if there is something in IE that is automatically loading (This should have been picked up by the above but is a good quick check).

[SeeK]

Be sure to turn on your XP Firewall or use a hardware router/firewall.

After doing all the above and cleaning up be sure to go to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/ and install all the critical updates. This will probably require a few reboots.

Then check over the other updates to see if they could affect you and install those also.

[1stdeadeye]

Computer is now fully dead! I am going to swap out the C Drive and reload windows XP to that. I'l try to fix the C Drive later. It won't let me boot from the CD though.

Frustrated!!!!

[Butterfingers]

Get Knoppix Linux Run that from a CD then format the drive that is dead.

Linux will allow you to format a windows partition onto your new harddrive.

Alternatively you can fix the problem manually by going into linux and deleting or modifying the offending files. Linux can read and write to a windows partition. While the operating system will be completely immune to windows viruses.

Im pretty sure you can find some freeware antivirus out there that scans a windows partition on the Linux OS.

[SeeK]

Get Knoppix Linux Run that from a CD then format the drive that is dead.

Linux will allow you to format a windows partition onto your new harddrive.

Alternatively you can fix the problem manually by going into linux and deleting or modifying the offending files. Linux can read and write to a windows partition. While the operating system will be completely immune to windows viruses.

Im pretty sure you can find some freeware antivirus out there that scans a windows partition on the Linux OS.

Will Linux mount an NTFS partition? At this point it sounds like he needs to run the XP Setup disk which will rewrite the boot sector so the drive will boot. After that the virus scan should work but I'm pretty sure that any program that runs under Linux won't scan for Windows viruses.

You could try a parallel Windows install to c:\winnt2 then load the scanner, clean up the disk and change the boot.ini to default boot to c:\windows. Afterwards you can delete the c:\winnt2.

[1stdeadeye]

I put the Windows XP disc in the CD drive, but it won't try to boot from it??

[Dayspring]

You have to enter the Bios settings and tell the computer to change the boot order from the HDD to the CDROM. It'll look at the CD for the operating system first.

I put the Windows XP disc in the CD drive, but it won't try to boot from it??

[NJPaint]

You have to enter the Bios settings and tell the computer to change the boot order from the HDD to the CDROM. It'll look at the CD for the operating system first.

What he said, put the CD in the drive.

When it starts to boot up it will say "Press *** to enter setup" (the *** can be F2 or Del, or maybe F8)

This lets you enter the bios.

Once in the bios you need to find the boot order and manually put the CD drive before the Hard Drive.

Once this is done, save the settings and reboot. You should hear the CD drive spin and something along the lines of "Hit any key to boot from Adaptec CD Drive..." (yes with the elipses) hit any key and it should show you a blue screen and it will load the setup for you.

[SeeK]

What he said, put the CD in the drive.

When it starts to boot up it will say "Press *** to enter setup" (the *** can be F2 or Del, or maybe F8)

This lets you enter the bios.

Once in the bios you need to find the boot order and manually put the CD drive before the Hard Drive.

Once this is done, save the settings and reboot. You should hear the CD drive spin and something along the lines of "Hit any key to boot from Adaptec CD Drive..." (yes with the elipses) hit any key and it should show you a blue screen and it will load the setup for you.

I can't find the any key!