Posted: 7/31/2005 4:29:43 AM EDT
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Last night my laptop started going goofy. my desktop started flashing back and forth saying my PC was infected and there was a hyperlink to click. I ran all of my spyware stuff and McAffe but nothiing. Then I did a restart and these 2 little red circles with exclamtion marks in the apeared on the bottom left toolbar(XP) and they say my pc is infected click here which directed me to a site called PSGuard where I purchased for $10 a spyware program that I have run. I just installed a bunch of microsoft updates and as i am typing this the red exclamation points disappeared. The PC is running fine.. And the flashing desktop is back to my normal pic od Aria Giovanni... Any ideas? |
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My typical advice, if it will take longer to remove the virus effectively than it will to just wipe the HD and reinstall the OS, just rebuild from scratch. This assumes two things....you are able to offload your important data to some other temporary storage....and you know how to install an OS from scratch. A healthy understanding of the 'registry' will help 'disable' or at least disrupt a virus...but I am at the point where I feel it is easier to just rebuild my machine. With a laptop, you still need some secondary resource to store your files during a rebuild. I keep a pc built up with an 80G HD that all I use it for is storage....nothing else on the disk. If the OS craps out on one of my machines, i can safely wipe that OS out and never lose my personal data....just rebuild the machine, and I am usually back to normal in 1-2 hours. Good luck |
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The red exclamation disappeared again. I dont feel like rebuilding the whole thing as the data backup will take hours alone, mostly music but my beloved porn will take forever to backup! Unless I can somehow hhok this machine up to a regular desktop pc? There has to be other options to unload whatever got into this thing? |
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download and install ewido trend antipyware trial from download.com adaware se personal and spybot search and destroy download them update them run full sytems scans delete everything thats found then install hijackthis from hijackthis and post your log file when you've rebooted |
No, don't go into the BIOS setup. Go to a command prompt in windows. type fdisk. Pick delete partition Delete all partitions. Put in system CD, reboot, the install will recreate the partition, format it and install. |
Crap... I missed that part. Try holding F8 to boot into safe mode. If that doesn't help, then format away. |
Blue screens going into safe mode too. Trying to reinstall now... |
Tried that first, but he forgot the Admin password, so we did a wipe/reload. i.e. Nuke from orbit, just to be sure. 
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Im not talking about the recovery console! this is the same steps as reinstalling windows. but it will detect that windows is installed and it will ask you if you want to try to do a repair. sorry if im misunderstanding you
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It asks for the admin password on a repair install and in the recovery console. Not sure why he didn't remember it.. 
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I've seen that happen on one laptop since xp has been out. it had some type of virus that changed all the users password and he was never able to get back into windows.. i ended up using knoppix to get his picture back....... at this point it would take the hd drive out scan it(for virus's) in a clean computer, bac up what he/she needs and low level that bad boy. and in the future be carefull what web sites and emails you open in the future
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| If you want to try and remove the PSGuard manually, go here. |
+1000 Never buy or install anti-spyware programs on recommendations from other spyware programs! |
a must read for everyone spyware rogue make sure you scroll down some 
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Computer invasion programs are getting so complex, it's almost impossible to keep up with them anymore. If something is not done about it, it will eventually kill the internet experience for the average user. I'll try to be blunt without being cruel. You were duped into buying the PSguard by PSguard. Sounds like the program imbedded software to block other Spyware and Virus programs. A common place for this is in your windows backup which sometimes you can turn the backup off and manually remove the malware but sometimes it even blocks backup so you can't turn it off. This ultimately corrupts your operation system. I always try the fixes before reformatting since that's easier however would be remiss if I didn't tell you sometimes reformating is your only option. Knowing this, I keep backups for my data and limit the number of programs on my computer to speed the process. By far my most dreaded mode of failure is the operation system fails to boot. Sometimes I get lucky and can troubleshoot it through safemode but sometimes not even that. Normal operation for me is to run a router with hardwall protection, software firewall, anti-virus,and spyware all nationaly recognized. I run the spyware program after every time on the web and the anti-virus weekly for there are many blocking malware programs for the nationaly known programs. On two computers I spend around $120 a year on subscription renewals. I limit my exposure by only visiting regular sites and sites not known to be commerically dangerous like freewares and about free anything for that matter. I block popups and never respond to any. If it sounds too good to be true it is. I hate this shit with a passion and if computer invasion ever becomes a crime equal to home invasion some assholes had better duck.  Tj |