My lap top suddenly crashed a few days back and all seems corrupt.

I have tried the Windows recovery disc that came with the laptop and have run as many security scans with Norton as I can, but as soon as I click on ANY link within IE or Google Chrome, i'm taken to an American Finance webpage.

At one point, if I tried to install a security program (ie Spybot) I would be taken to the 'uninstall' option ?

I'm at my wits end with this now.

Any ideas ?

Cheers

Reinstall windows after reformatting the hard disk

(buy a mac.....lol)

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Can you run an online scan such as Trend housecall?

If you can find out what you're dealing with you can attack it.

I am about to do the same for my fathers PC (god only knows what he gets up to).

You could try downloading Vipre Result (from sunbelt software) on another PC - it is a single .exe file, copy it onto the laptop via a USB/CD/Network and run it, it extracts and then performs a virus scan. You might get lucky. However I do believe that once a machine has been infected you are safer to flatten it and start again.

I tend to keep a ghost image of the machine with all the patches/office/common apps and then I can restore than in 10 minutes, apply latest patches (then maybe re ghost), and then copy the data back on.

Format and Reinstall? - Isnt that being a bit premature?! No-ones asked you if you get the laptop to boot into windows safe mode? Once you're in then you can regain control of your system and kill any nasty processes that you seem to have buried into your web browser.

If you can get into desktop from an F8 boot then half the battle is already won. Sounds like you have a real nasty malware infection at the very least. I use a combination of software, Malwarebytes Anti-malware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Hijackthis... the latter allows you to copy your registry and check it online with known problem entries.

Secondly - you could then return to a previous restore point, reversing any other changed registry entries that the detection system may not have picked up.

You've not mentioned what version of windows you're running.. is it XP?

Edited 30 March, 201214 yr by Trilogy2k

Format and Reinstall? - Isnt that being a bit premature?! No-ones asked you if you get the laptop to boot into windows safe mode? Once you're in then you can regain control of your system and kill any nasty processes that you seem to have buried into your web browser.

If you can get into desktop from an F8 boot then half the battle is already won. Sounds like you have a real nasty malware infection at the very least. I use a combination of software, Malwarebytes Anti-malware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Hijackthis... the latter allows you to copy your registry and check it online with known problem entries.

Secondly - you could then return to a previous restore point, reversing any other changed registry entries that the detection system may not have picked up.

You've not mentioned what version of windows you're running.. is it XP?

Windows Vista Home basic.

I am very novice where this is concerned so if there's any steps I should follow, A-Z please

Format and Reinstall? - Isnt that being a bit premature?! No-ones asked you if you get the laptop to boot into windows safe mode? Once you're in then you can regain control of your system and kill any nasty processes that you seem to have buried into your web browser.

If you can get into desktop from an F8 boot then half the battle is already won. Sounds like you have a real nasty malware infection at the very least. I use a combination of software, Malwarebytes Anti-malware, Spybot Search and Destroy, and Hijackthis... the latter allows you to copy your registry and check it online with known problem entries.

Secondly - you could then return to a previous restore point, reversing any other changed registry entries that the detection system may not have picked up.

You've not mentioned what version of windows you're running.. is it XP?

If it's a large drive by the time you do all that you might as well have re-installed windows

We had a problem with our PC, which we thought had packed up altogether, anyhow after my brother looked at it, it appears the Norton Anti-virus had corrupted it! So, we have uninstalled that, and installed another Anti-Virus program, and everything is fine now. Norton is not all its cracked up to be.

Ok, so the principle should be the same. Remove your network cable and from a cold startup keep tapping the F8 key, after a few seconds you should get a menu which gives you a selection of boot options,

Choose 'Safe Mode', windows should continue to boot albeit slowly form normal as it loads all of the virtual device drivers.

At the end of all that you should arrive at your desktop. The resolution might be lower and you may have a reduced colour pallette however it should be enough to do what you need to do.

Previous to this I would download the latest versions of your preferred scanning software from another computer and put on a USB stick ready for installation onto your laptop. Make sure you have versions with the very latest updates..

Normally malware doesn't allow you to kill it once up and running, its very sneaky and can change form (ie the the executable name for it can change in taskmanager etc).

I would start with your Anti-malware and spybot as above and see if that does the trick. Launch your browser (and see if there are any changes).

Although your pc wont be able to connect to the net you might get an idea if anythings improved as it may try to load the dodgy URL as you mentioned (into the address bar). If it seems to have worked then shutdown and restart your pc normally.

If thats not worked then maybe you would need to look at trying out something like Hijackthis or similar. But that can be on another reply.

If it's a large drive by the time you do all that you might as well have re-installed windows

Yes but only if theres nothing on there that you want to keep. Inserting a usb stick into a infected pc could potentially spread problems elsewhere too.

Yes but only if theres nothing on there that you want to keep. Inserting a usb stick into a infected pc could potentially spread problems elsewhere too.

Not if you scan it before it goes back on the formatted/other pc, nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure !!

Not if you scan it before it goes back on the formatted/other pc, nuke the site from orbit, it's the only way to be sure !!

well then perhaps you'd like to take over the thread and explain the process for jonny. I'm sure he'd welcome help on your suggestion

The advice so far on removing the problem is OK, but for indepth advice on using advanced removal tools try registering at Bleeping Computer - Computer Help and Discussion

All A/V programs, including MalwareBytes can be "Borg'ed" by modern infections if the virus can get itself on to the system, in that case you need the advanced stuff like COMBOFIX and SDFIX that can be dangerous to use if you are not an expert.

Hijackthis is useful as the people at the above website can use the results data from it to identify suspicious entries.

Sometimes rescuing what data you can to an external drive, then shredding the partition and reformatting is the only way to go, but it is a bit over-the-top to advice it as a first response.

Windows Vista Home basic.

There's your problem!

As above, things can be quite tough these days - best off finding a local person and handing over some beer tokens.

Notice SPYBOT is mentioned. I have found Superantispyware quicker , and it gets some good reviews . Certainly the one time I had to use it it worked.Had something on like the fake Windows anti virus and Malware bytes couldn't touch it .

Sometimes rescuing what data you can to an external drive, then shredding the partition and reformatting is the only way to go, but it is a bit over-the-top to advice it as a first response.

Also, given that it's Vista, doing this would start completely fresh and be rid of all the other bloat that probably came with the PC in the first place. If you find a Vista Home Basic DVD instead of a Recovery DVD, you'll start with just Vista and nothing else, no freebies, no "extras", no Norton. From here, get Anti-Malware and Anti-Virus on before doing anything else. You'll probably the PC will run faster than you remember too. (even with the enormous drag-factor of Vista.)

And for anti virus , I'd suggest Avast free 4.5 ,or better . But then ,it might be worth going for a fresh install of Win7.

Download malware bytes and run in safe mode. To get into safe mode, press F8 on startup.

And for anti virus , I'd suggest Avast free 4.5 ,or better . But then ,it might be worth going for a fresh install of Win7.

I'd second Avast Free (it's on Version 7 now the current one). Win7 would add expense to the proceedings though, but well worth the investment if the hardware is up to it, otherwise better putting the money towards a new laptop.

I'm surprised no one has suggested booting off one of the many freely available offline scanners. On another PC download something like Kaspersky Rescue http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208282173 and burn it onto a CD. Boot the infected PC off the CD and scan- this way there's no chance that whatever is infecting the PC will be running as the installed OS is basically just a set of files (the boot CD generally runs some variant of Linux).

The suggestion to use a restore point is good though. That's got me out of virus issues on several occasions.

For the most part, with customer's PC's I generally take the 'flatten it' and start again approach. Tricky virus problems can be time-consuming and expensive when someone's paying for my time and there's always the danger that it hasn't been completely erradicated. Acronis True Image can also be really helpful as you can backup an image of the infected hard disk to a file which you can later mount as a disk to retrieve any data.

I'd second Avast Free (it's on Version 7 now the current one). Win7 would add expense to the proceedings though, but well worth the investment if the hardware is up to it, otherwise better putting the money towards a new laptop.

Something else not mentioned is that on all on line checks Win 7 with defender & firewall gets 100% claerance from the lokes of Norton on line checks.

AND Win 7 is available free if you look on some websites.One has some connection with pirates & BAYS .

Hmmmm, but would you really trust something so fundimental as an O/S coming from somewhere like that?

You can download Win7 free from Microsoft too, all you'd need is a key to make it legit after 30 days (or whatever the grace period is these days)

I've tried a restore point, Avast, recovery disc, etc and although the 'issue' seemed to have been found by the anti virus, soon as any attempt to access anything on a Google search is done, I'm taken to the same pages for a US financial crap site.

Also, the laptop runs VERY slow whilst doing anything.

The computer maybe running slowly as the malware quiet happily emails all your contacts spam emails or more. until you get this sorted the laptop should be kept offline if possible to avoid any of your friends / family or work colleagues getting the same malware.

Modern malware can be very difficult (but not impossible) to remove. Restore points will be infected, so no point in using those and most malware will hide in the system restore partition since its invisible to most tools.

If you are a computer novice and not skilled with registry editing, unhiding system folders etc. then I would look at taking it either to someone who knows what they are doing and pay them to remove it for you.

I work in IT support, and have to do this occasionally even at work where formatting workstations is not usually an option.

Once again I will mention bleepingcomputers, they will talk you through everything and they do it for FREE.