We have been to one of those online virus scanner services (Kaspersky) and it identified several baddies. Installed MalwareBytes and AVG and BitDefender. (No, we did NOT try to run them all at the same time). MalwareBytes did not find much and neither did AVG; BitDefender on the other hand found page after page of viruses and trojans and worms, disabled maybe 70-80% of them but reported a failure to remove or quarantine the remaining 20%. Among the crap listed: Generic.peed.eml; Worm.generic.this & Worm.generic.that; various infected exe and scr files; Cool_MP3.exe for example; dshdb.exe; nearly all of it inside of Thunderbird’s various email files.
Computer is slow and sludgy especially on internet functions (network timeouts galore, very sluggish responsiveness in loading pages, etc); I’m sitting right next to her on the same DSL service w/o any such probs.
Tried booting into Safe Mode to see if BitDefender could do more effective stuff but it won’t run in safe mode.
Can we / should we HIRE someone who knows this stuff to de-virus her system and install protective software? I don’t mean some luck-of-the-draw Best Buy Geek Squad person but if we could find someone who really does know this stuff…?
I’m a Mac person and ignorant of such PC matters, and it’s not her area of expertise either.
EDIT: Aww dangit, this should have gone into IMHO not GQ.
At this point, it might just be easier to format the computer and start fresh. However, that’s not always an option for some people, so if you’re up for it:
Try using a Linux Live CD (such as Knoppix) to access the hard drive without having to run Windows, and then try and scan the drive from there using programs such as ClamAV.
This is perhaps harder than it sounds… at the very least, you can use the live CD to back up files from the computer to a flash drive.
Hiring someone will cost you at least 100 dollars. At this point I would consider just reinstalling windows with the discs provided by your OEM. Save your files to an external drive and wipe the machine and start over.
I’m sure this will be met with much scorn from higher-level users out there,
BUT
I got myself a nasty little virus a couple of years ago from downloading something naughty and not knowing that I really should heed the warnings from Norton. Yes, I use Norton, it comes free with my NetZero account and I have neither the time nor desire to educate myself any further or research a different security program.
I also have neither the time nor the desire to reformat my hard drive and try to figure out how to back everything up.
I called Norton. They remote-accessed my computer and fixed it in about 10 minutes. As far as I’m concerned, it was worth every penny of the $90 they charged and I would do it again.
I stopped trying to download naughty stuff, I stick to streaming mostly, and heed the warnings from the Norton program, and haven’t had a problem since.
What is the best way to do this? I was thinking of starting fresh on my old laptop before I do something drastic like buy a new harddrive. Its old slow and has a bunch of crap I’ll never use clogging it up. No data I need to save, thats been moved to other machines long ago.
Her computer is a Mac Mini that has Windows installed on it via BootCamp. It therefore has FireWire on it and the ability to boot in FireWire Target Disk Mode.
My Mac has MacFUSE + NTFS 3g on it and can therefore write to NTFS volumes. I can download the version of ClamAV that runs on a Mac. Presumably you see where I’m going with this. Any reason that would not work as well as Trinity or Knoppix or etc cd-based Linux boot approach?
“BootCamp” is an Apple-authored routine for (I think the Windows term is: ) “slipstreaming” Apple hardware drivers including EFI instead of BIOS into a Windows installation CD and burning a new installation CD that will properly install a bootable copy, with those drivers, onto an Intel-powered Mac.
Once installed, it is plain ordinary Windows, which you are booted into (not running a virtual machine or anything, no MacOS running anywhere), from its own disk partition which would be the C drive.
Usually when a virus scanner has trouble deleting a virus I can get it to work in safe mode.
Have you tried running Kaspersky or MalwareBytes in safe mode? I had trouble with a virus a while ago that I only managed to kill with MalwareBytes. If you only ran BitDefender in safe mode then I would try a few others before you reinstall.
I’ve routinely done jobs like this for less then $50. But being uncertified I don’t charge much. ($14 for trip plus $10 an hour). I usually spend my time fixing the customer’s security while running various AVs and disabling virus components.
To the OP:
I quick google found how to run bitdefender in safe mode here.
have you tried running malware bytes in safe mode?
Also I’d try running malware bytes in safe mode as well. You most likely have root kits (software that uses various tricks to hide it’s self from the rest of the system) blocking it from detecting things. Safe mode should also prevent Thunderbird errors as I bet the reason you’re having trouble deleting some of the files in your email is because Thunderbird is running and locking the files preventing the OS from deleting it.
Except files containing executables or programs such as the girlfriend’s email files, and potentially zips, rars, isos, or any kind of file that can potentially contain another file.
Just some fyi. This is prolly the safest solution and a good idea to back up what you can anyway.