...I got a virus...

[PurDi]

My little brother thinks it's fun to download random games off of the Internet... Needless to say he ran into one he had to have! it had a pretty horrible virus attached to it and now I'm in the process of trying to remove it.

So here's my problem, the virus won't let's boot in safe mode and it shuts down the computer in about 5 minutes in normal mode...

So a couple questions I have. /end yoda voice.

How fo you boot the computer from the original windows cd?
What is the command for system restore in command prompt?
The virus is called spynet. Does anyone know about it or have virus experience that would help?

 

[FrznSaber]

Hey Purdi, to boot from the CD rather from the hard drive, you must configure your system BIOS to do so. Just press F4 as soon as your PC starts to enter the BIOS configuration screen

 

[Diddyknight]

IF all else fails, re install windows/linux. Back it up via live CD so that way you wont lose everything and yet removing the virus.

 

[Dastrn]

Switch to Ubuntu, if you can. You can download the install CD for free, and burn it to a CD-R. You won't have virus problems again, although you can't install windows software. But if you're just using it for web stuff and word processing and whatnot you'll be fine.

I actually use both Windows 7/Vista and Ubuntu on all of my computers. I only go over to windows if there's a game I want to install or something. That way, I can't pick up viruses from internet browsing and whatnot, and I'm only using Windows for gaming.

 

[Anthony523]

Hey Purdi, to boot from the CD rather from the hard drive, you must configure your system BIOS to do so. Just press F4 as soon as your PC starts to enter the BIOS configuration screen

It's not always F4 for all computers.... Also it should ask to boot from CD or not...

Also to the OP, have you tried last known good configuration mode??
See how that helps..

 

[Diddyknight]

meh I Ubuntu is fine....Gentoo it <3

 

[PurDi]

It's not always F4 for all computers.... Also it should ask to boot from CD or not...

Also to the OP, have you tried last known good configuration mode??
See how that helps..

I don't know exactly how to. If it requires me logging in in normal mode it won't work. I just don't have enough time to work everything out.

Also, an update:
It seems that since my computer is a few years old, my dad doesn't know the administrator password anymore, so I can't get into the system recovery console...

I also tried to get to system restore within the 5 minutes but It doesn't work fast enough...


And honestly my Dad would get angry if I tried to use another operating system for it... He's paranoid about computers... So he won't trust anything that HE doesn't know about.

 

[Diddyknight]

Boot from Live Cd then. Remove the game file that way >_>

 

[Anthony523]

Yeah I guess your just gonna have to do that, also now is the best time to upgrade to Windows 7 :]

 

[PurDi]

So could I somehow get ubuntu and run its OS to go clean out whatever was wrong with the computer?

If so, how should I go about doing it? How do you get the live CD for it?

 

[Diddyknight]

Yeah you can do that.

Ubunu live CD:
http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

 

[Phanteon198]

that is quite easy...
go search for the backup and restore center...

 

[PurDi]

Quick update if anyone cares.

We were using Ubuntu to search through the computer to kill the virus but after searching the internet for a while we found that most of the files will just recreate themselves after being deleted... So we found what starts the programs setup and just simply renamed it. Now the virus can't start so it doesn't do anything to the computer.

While it worries me to have parts of the virus on my computer still, we've rendered it harmless.

Virus scans haven't proved efficient. They don't kill it off... They don't even recognize that it's a threat...

any tips on cleaning this thing up?

P.S. I'm actually using the infected computer to type this!

 

[Super_ness]

Actually, from Ubuntu, you should be able to safely delete it because simply, the virus can't run on Ubuntu, so it can't reproduce itself.

 

[PurDi]

That might work, but if I went back to windows would they reappear?

And one of the main problems is that we don't know what all of the files are and the virus messed with the registries... It doesn't create new ones, it actually just changes them, so if we delete them the computer doesn't work.

 

[Diddyknight]

its a 50:50 chance for it to re appear assuming if it latched itself elsewhere. IF it did mess around with the registry, get a registry fixer which i can pm you if you want. the registry should then fix itself with the program. =]

 

[Super_ness]

Crap. If you could identify all the files and delete them, it'd be dead. For the changed ones, you could copy them onto a flash drive from a different computer, and replace them on the infected one. Or as an unnecessary finale, just back everything up, and reinstall Windows.

Also, tell your brother that downloading random files off the Internet is generally a dangerous move, unless you use Linux.

 

[PurDi]

Yea, go ahead and PM me with the registry fixer, It'll probably help.

And I really don't think I could find all of the files without some guidance and searching the web I can't even find the same virus I have...

Also, my brother knew not to download things, I guess it just never struck him that it would actually happen. He had one of those "Oh, it won't happen to me, it'll be someone else" moments.

 

[Super_ness]

Well, for now, just be careful until you get everything cleaned up.

 

[Untrust Us]

Before doing a leap of faith by installing Ubuntu, you might want to try Restore.

 

[PurDi]

I didn't really install ubuntu, just ran it's OS to get into my C: drive and clean everything out.

And not to sound rude but there was no way I could have done a restore...
I couldn't get to system restore in the startup menu before the computer shut itself down and we forgot the administrator password to run the system recovery console.

Anyway I think I've got it all fixed. thanks for the help guys?


Quick question is there any really good free antivirus software I can get? I already have Trend Micro on my computer. I used True Sword to kill spynet but it only has a trial offer... So It would only get rid of 10 problems (including registry fixes)...

 

[HoN3Y64]

AVG, but you can always *coughtorrentcough* it.

 

[Dastrn]

AVG is your best bet, and it's free.