Virus Help- Laptop

[JScotty]

Hey so my dad, that doesn't live in the same town as me, is all kinds of frustrated because his laptop got infected with a virus and has disabled his AVG. He's been calling me, asking for advice, and I told him to boot up in Safe Mode and run AVG there and take off the virus. About half the viruses went away. His AVG now will not start in regular mode, though.

So I gave him links to other antivirus software, but first gave him instructions on how to "System Restore" back to before the virus was on his computer.

I have no idea how to diagnose this long distance, any other advice?

 

[Codrus]

usually the easiest thing to do is wipe your drive.

most viruses will keep you away from antivirus sites, if you have a not so old antivirus disk try using that from boot up, intall and scan.or try a sfae mode scan
you could always try to a rollback then scan.

hopefully he has backed up recently. if your patient you can find other ways onto the web by indirect pages that way you dont have to wipe....but as i said formating your drive is usually easier

 

[Alien Allen]

System restore is useless

AVG is probably useless too as it allowed the virus to get there

Depending upon the virus he could have a lengthy fix that takes numerous steps. I don't know if there is anybody on this site that is available or able to do this kind of stuff. You would start though with him downloading Hijack This.

If the bosses here will let me I can recommend a site that has a ton of tech people that can help if nobody here can.

 

[Alien Allen]

Format is no doubt the best thing in the end if you can save important stuff first. Some viruses can still leave damage where the computer may be stable but just does not run as efficiently.

 

[Codrus]

System restore is useless

AVG is probably useless too as it allowed the virus to get there

Depending upon the virus he could have a lengthy fix that takes numerous steps. I don't know if there is anybody on this site that is available or able to do this kind of stuff. You would start though with him downloading Hijack This.

If the bosses here will let me I can recommend a site that has a ton of tech people that can help if nobody here can.

Format is no doubt the best thing in the end if you can save important stuff first. Some viruses can still leave damage where the computer may be stable but just does not run as efficiently.

Hijack This.:thumbup

but you will need to do it from another pc....if the virus lets him onlie at all...its probaly not going to let him onto to many sites that could help remove it

 

[Codrus]

he could also try Malwarebytes'

 

[Alien Allen]

Hijack This.:thumbup

but you will need to do it from another pc....if the virus lets him onlie at all...its probaly not going to let him onto to many sites that could help remove it

If he can get the computer to respond then you would install HJT onto a jump drive on another computer. Install and run it on the lap top. Then copy the results to the jump drive to then use on the working computer.

 

[Alien Allen]

I make no claims to being any good at removing viruses. I had one and got some help at a site and tried to educate myself by watching other threads where viruses were dealt with. Sometime it took pages and running a number of programs to get the computer cleaned. And it was done in certain steps. If not done right the virus will just return

 

[Codrus]

If he can get the computer to respond then you would install HJT onto a jump drive on another computer. Install and run it on the lap top. Then copy the results to the jump drive to then use on the working computer.

yeah...but first , if the computer is responding and depending on what version windows, try running "MRT.EXE" ...sometimes that can hlep with simple things

 

[JScotty]

Thanks for the advice- I have no idea if I'll be able to explain any of this to him over the phone but I'm gonna try...

 

[Ertragen]

I have been an IT for years and trust me, Formatting the drive is not a solution. It's giving up.

One thing I have to say is "prevention" but since more times than not if you ran into trouble that's not what you want to hear so... here's how I typically clean out viruses and such.

1. disable system restore. this may not sound like a good idea to some people but honestly system restore is just a piece of junk that just uses up your cpu and space on your hard drive and hardly ever saves you from trouble. by disabling system restore you will remove all the backup files of system changes and often will include files where viruses are hiding. Viruses often hide in various places to recover itself if you ever delete a copy of the virus.

2. keep some antivirus and antispyware apps on a usb drive or cd. and boot in safe mode to use them. go check out portableapps.com. they have lots of freebies including clamwin (antivirus) and some other sites will have antispyware software that you can run withOUT having to setup and install. this will be very useful since windows won't let you run microsoft installation app under safe mode.

3. in safe mode, first thing you want to do is scan for virus, then scan for spyware, and it's not over. don't forget utilities like "autoruns" and "hijackthis" to browse for browser hijack items, and auto run start up items that the virus or spyware may have implemented to make your computer redownload a copy of itself or restore from hidden places. also especially in case of spywares which may have hijacked your internet and makes your typed addresses to go else where or goes through its own special proxy, don't forget to download and run Winsockfix (for xp) for vista you can run netsh winsock resetunder command prompt.

4. don't forget to look for .exe files under documents and settings or under "app data" folders. exe apps should NOT be there.

5. all this is easier if you can do it hands on but if you have to do things remotely maybe via over phone, then just have the person try installing spybot search & destroy. if it finds an app it can't delete then it will ask you if you want to delete after reboot. this should make things easier.