Infected! Help!

[RuffRyder88]

Hey guys,

My pc is infected with some virus or spyware, but I cant seem to get rid of it. Basically whenever I try to go to certain webpages, it goes to a page for something called system doctor and says that spyware is infecting my computer and preventing me from accessing that page. My computer is also running really slow. I've tried AVG antivirus, ewido anti-spyware, adaware and spybot.

Any other programmes I can try?

cheers,
Bob

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Well you can try THESE (http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=379516) or you can just format.

[tenchi86]

http://www.2-spyware.com/remove-systemdoctor.html?gclid=CM3Zi-fHwYcCFTpiFQod6zGRNQ Try here or here http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic58656.html. A quick google search brought up a lot of information so just try using google. Also try some scanners like Kaspersky Online Scanner, Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner, Windows Defender.

[TempliNocturnus]

pwned :p You should just format. That's the best thing to do. And when you reinstall windows, make sure you have a decent antivirus and firewall and stay away from certian pron sites.

[tenchi86]

Some people are trigger happy, others are reinstall happy. I think it's worth giving him a few other options personally before we tell him to just reinstall.

[nvidiaOCmaster]

Find anything in the registry that shouldnt be there(most people can spot it) Look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software.


I dont want to sound like a douche or anything.. Ive had adware, I know it sucks...but you got OWNED!

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Some people are trigger happy, others are reinstall happy. I think it's worth giving him a few other options personally before we tell him to just reinstall.

That's why I linked to the sticky which should pretty much answers his questions...:beer:

[tenchi86]

Sorry if I was not clear, my post was not directed at you though. It actually was not directly aimed at anyone. Just have seen to many people tell a person to reinstall before they have even tried to offer some real help.

[Audioaficionado]

Sorry if I was not clear, my post was not directed at you though. It actually was not directly aimed at anyone. Just have seen to many people tell a person to reinstall before they have even tried to offer some real help.Good advise :thup:
How else are people going to learn how to repair, manage and maintain Windows if they just keep killing it at the slightest provocation.

[deadlysyn]

Have you tried running Hijack This? I haven't used it, but I know a lot of people here have. I personally use Ad-aware SE Pro, Pest Patrol, and Windows Defender. Seems to keep my computer runnig pretty clean, but I think I might have paid a little too much for Pest Patrol since they sold out to CA.

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Sorry if I was not clear, my post was not directed at you though. It actually was not directly aimed at anyone. Just have seen to many people tell a person to reinstall before they have even tried to offer some real help.

No apologies necessary. I never felt slighted by the statement. I agree with you. Telling someone to reformat might be meaningless unless you indicate why a reformat is needed. Otherwise people will habitually reformat Windows at the slightest sign of annoyance. Well if that happens, then no one will ever actually use the operating system long after the installation ;-)

[ƒÓÒl]

First, I'd get online (any page, don't matter) and update your AV and AdAware etc..using their built-in update links.
Second, I'd turn off system restore by hitting Start>Control Panel>System>System Restore tab. Check the box that says to turn off system restore on all drives.
Thirdly, I'd reboot into Safe Mode by hitting F8 durring the bios screen where it's checking for CD's.

Then run those AV/Spyware programs in safemode.
If they find a bunch of stuff, and your computer's been running better for about 3 days, then you can turn on system restore again. I believe that when you turn it off though, it wipes out the restore points that were there before...not a bad idea since they probably got attacked first.

Then you can go online and get to Kaspersky's home page and run their Online Virus Scanner, which is still much better than AVG IMHO (and is free as well). Active X has to be turned on to use it, which is default in IE, but just saying that incase you've turned it off.
That's just to make sure your comp is clean.

One last thing, Between Kaspersky's for the AV and Ewido (owned by AVG now) for the other junk, there's none better. Try the 30 day free trials of those two if what you've got doesn't clean everything out in safe mode.

*edit* One last thing, I've seen it where cleaning the virus may not be enough to stop IE from redirecting you. I've solved this before by uninstalling IE using Add/Remove software/ Windoze components and reinstalling it from your CD. Not a great fix, but it sure beats trying to find the code that was changed...

[UnrealAlex]

Try ewido anti spyware, it removed stuff from my pc that McAfee+ spybot+ ad-aware couldnt.

[TempliNocturnus]

Well, in the time it takes for anti-virus, anti-spyware, and removal software to do thier job and clean the system up, I prolly could format and reinstall everything. Less down time and 99.999% guarentee that there's no longer anything bad on my system. So being "reinstall happy" is prollly a very healthy thing. Beside, Vindows does tend to "rot over time" as they say. Your system prolly could use the format anyways :)

[Albaholic]

formatting could turn out to be a lot less headaches in the long run. You may also want to consider imaging your HD when you got all the essentials installed

[Layback Bear]

Does reformating wipe your complete drive or just the registry. If it doesn't wipe the complete H/D like a H/D cleaner does, couldn't the problem still be there?

[CreePinG_DeatH]

Reformatting wipes the drive completely (for our purposes) and you have to install the OS and start over.

[Audioaficionado]

Reformatting wipes the drive completely (for our purposes) and you have to install the OS and start over.Not unless you only have one partition on that drive. Formatting only affects the selected partition. That's why it's helpful to have one partition for the OS and others for data.

BTW formatting doesn't destroy or actually erase the data but just marks the partition empty. I've deleted and reformatted a partition and I was still able to access a folder I accidentally forgot to backup first. I used RT Studio and once it was located, I just copied it to a different partition and it's still fully intact. Great data recovery application.

[Layback Bear]

Thank you Audioaficionado, that leads me to my next question. If you data is still on your H/D isn't the virus/worm/keylogger still on your H/D after yor fomat?

[Audioaficionado]

Thank you Audioaficionado, that leads me to my next question. If you data is still on your H/D isn't the virus/worm/keylogger still on your H/D after yor fomat?Yes the 1s and 0s are still there until they are eventually overwritten. However they can never become active unless you recovered the data and then launched the exe. So they essentially are gone and never will be a problem again.

[Layback Bear]

Thank you I got it now.