Help, posted in wrong forum

[Montyrob]

wife wanted our wedding photos in a nice dvd format, downloaded some wedding dvd shareware to try and it installed fine, I actually used it for 20 mins playing around to see if I wanted to buy it or not. I went out to mow the lawn, came back in and had porn icons all over the desktop. it somehow bypassed my Trend Micro virus programs. it will not allow me to use malwarebytes to scan and when I tried to restart its now giving me loginui.exe errors I cant even get to the desktop most times. And when I can get to desktop It will not let my virus scan go beyond 41% either it just hangs, so what can I do ?

 

[Ruthe]

Welcome, and sorry about your predicament. To get you started, have you tried booting to safe mode and running your scans there? When you boot, press F8 continuously until you get the option to boot into safe mode.
Hopefully, someone else will be able to help you more, but you may need to give more information on your operating system. Also, there is a procedure listed as a sticky, I think it's at https://www.techspot.com/community/...lware-removal-preliminary-instructions.58138/ you should follow and post results from.
Good luck.

 

[Montyrob]

Hi there, thanks for the reply, I did manage to get into safe mode, but couldnt do anything, it seems to have disabled both Trend micro and Malwarebytes. also when I try to go to the internet to download everything listed to do it just takes ma to a blank page and then wont let me try to go anywhere else. Dell forums are telling me to do a Recovery, but then someone posted that they had had the same sort of issue and when they did that they got a black screen after the XP logo and ended up having to do a total wipe (which I'm trying to avoid doing)

 

[Ruthe]

What do you mean when you say you couldn't do anything in safe mode? Cursor working? Or do you mean you don't know what to do? Or you tried to fix it and it failed?

In the meantime, do you have a system restore point you could go back to? If so and you can get past the logon errors, you might try that.

If you still need help, please let us know what machine (dell what?) and operating system you have.

 

[Montyrob]

cursor works, but no programs will open. It's a Dell Inspiron 530. the restore points are suddenly all greyed out, and I know darn well I had points previous to this wonderful problem. All Dell wants me to do its wipe it clean and start over, but I have kodak photos on the drive I havent backed up yet of our baby. I was going to pop the drive into another comp but upon opening the case saw it has a SATA drive and not the IDE which is what the other comp has.

 

[Montyrob]

forgot to add it has XP Home with SP3

 

[Ruthe]

Hey, sorry it's been a while. I thought someone else was helping you. Assuming you still need help:
First, do you have a way to backup your pics to a flash drive? This is not guaranteed, and may also carry the virus to the flash drive, but at least you may save them. In safe mode, install the stick into a USB socket, but do not have it auto open by holding down the Shift key and/or do not respond to the balloon that says found new hardware. Find your pics directory (usually under docs and settings) and drag it to the flash drive. Do not use this drive in any machine until you know it's ok.
There are several options you could take, and I do not know the best thing for you to do.
You could try to manually set back a restore point.
You could try to clean off the malware by renaming a protection program and running it.
You could restore with the Dell CD - it ought to have a way to save data before restoring.

I think the easiest way for you would be to try to manually restore. I am going to hunt for or write up the directions and will be back. In the meantime, does anyone else have ideas?

 

[Montyrob]

Well I ended up having to take it in to a computer shop, they have found over 181 viruses and malware that infested all the .exe files, it also took over the bootlog and pretty much hampered their efforts to remove it. They are currently trying to extract the photos but they said somehow the virus got into the kodak sfotware also...so I'm going to have to do a full wipe and start over...they also said it looks like TrendMicro antivirus never did anything according to the guy, it only caught 1 virus the whole time I had it according to the logs. I really appreciate the help though, this site is a blessing with such knowledgeable people.

 

[Ruthe]

I am so sorry! I sure hope you can get your pictures.
To close the barn door after the horse is out :-(
be sure to back up precious data regularly. I have Outlook calendar remind me every 4 months.
Also, the best things you can do for your system are here:
https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic31474.html
I am also still going to write up a guide to restoring your system manually for this site. Hopefully, you will never need it.

Before you wipe this drive clean, search some more for a solution. I am sure there is a way to save your pics. Shops like to do the easiest by rote solution, usually. Maybe, in the meantime, consider buying another HDD since they're cheap.
Again, I am really, really sorry this happened, and I sure do hope you find a way to save those precious pictures.

 

[Montyrob]

I guess I was just ignorant to the fact that their are a-holes out there that just like to destroy peoples lives. I really hope I can save the pics too. I normally back up every 3 months, sad thing was next back up was yesterday Nov 1st. I'm going to start backing up every month now after this hard lesson.

 

[Ruthe]

OMG! yes, there are stupid destructive people out there. Please keep trying to save your pics and don't take no for an answer from the computer shop. If you took it to a big name store, they may try to put you off with 'nothing can be done'. Try looking locally for a small or one-person tech that will actually do their best for you and not follow the store's written procedures. Good luck!

 

[Montyrob]

computer back, 181 viruses and spyware later.....working great now