GRaaaarrraawhwawghaghgh!!!!

[AugustWest]

I'm a little irritated.  Ok, I'm a LOT irritated.  My darling wife, who I love dearly and who makes my life complete, has fucked up my (new) computer royally.  Apparantly she saw a popup that said my computer may be infected with spyware, so she clicked on it to get rid of that dastardly spyware.  Clicking on the ad apparently downloaded the most pernicious, evil scumware on the face of the earth -- CoolWebSurfer.  It's like one of those legendary STD's from Thailand or something.  This scam is they infect you with this SHIT that only they can cure and then charge you for the fuck*ng privelege.

Anyhow.

I spent the past week trying to get the damn thing off my box with SpySubtract, AdAware and a special tool called CoolWebShredder.  Nothing worked.  Last night, while I slept, darling wife tried to help.  She unplugged my computer, moved her box into my office and hooked it up to the DSL modem.  Since she didn't know where the installation disc was she couldn't get online.  Now I'm online on her computer.

Because when I replugged in my box this morning, it is totally and absolutely FUCKED.  All I get is my desktop wallpaper.  I can't get Task Manager.  I can't get Windows Explorer.  I got no toolbar, no start button, nada.  I can't even get to the BIOS setup screen when I turn it on.  It shuts the damn monitor off while it cycles up.  I can't boot up in safe mode.  I cannot do jack.

Any suggestions?

As an afterthought, while I am angry with Mrs. West, I do dearly love her (no, she didn't just come in the room.)  Also, lest you get the wrong impression, she is not computer illiterate -- she's a computer tech for a very large (brown) company.  She's just a little goofy sometimes (thus her attraction to yours truly.)

[CortJstr]

Wow. If you can't even get into the BIOS then things are pretty bad. Do you have a recovery CD? OS installation CDs? Because at this point that seems like your best bet.

Other suggestions: http://forums.spywareinfo.com/

http://spywarewarrior.com/viewtopic.php?t=2116

[Bozack]

Yeah, I'm no doctor of computerology or anything, but if I remember correctly, when that happened to my last PC, we took it out behind the shed and shot it.

[slink]

Not sure about the BIOS thing. Spyware shouldn't affect that. It'd have to be a pretty evil virus to do so.
Still, CJ is right - reinstall windows. Make sure to reformat the drive first though, to make sure you obliterate it.

[CortJstr]

Possible idea: Depending on the size expense of the old drive I might buy a brand new 120 gig drive and install Windows onto it. Then make the old fucked drive into a slave and see if I could at least salvage some of my files off of it. After running a full Norton scan, AdAware and SpybotSD of course.

Then I'd still reformat it just to be safe. That is assuming it would even be able to behave as a slave.

[slink]

Possible idea: Depending on the size expense of the old drive I might buy a brand new 120 gig drive and install Windows onto it. Then make the old fucked drive into a slave and see if I could at least salvage some of my files off of it. After running a full Norton scan, AdAware and SpybotSD of course.

Indeed. Good advice. I run a 40gb as a boot drive, with a 200gb on SATA as the drive where I keep everything that isn't a program or Windows. Then I have an 80gb dedicated audio drive for PT but that's me.
I always recommend people have a boot drive or partition, and setup any machine I build for people that way, so that when you need to reinstall windows, you can just backup what you need to and reformat before installing. Windows is never quite happy unless you reformat the boot drive.

[CortJstr]

I should use partitions &c but never do. Although I do back up my mp3s/e-mail/pictures/etc onto an external 80GB drive no less than monthly.

[arkabee]

Because when I replugged in my box this morning, it is totally and absolutely FUCKED.  All I get is my desktop wallpaper.  I can't get Task Manager.  I can't get Windows Explorer.  I got no toolbar, no start button, nada.  I can't even get to the BIOS setup screen when I turn it on.  It shuts the damn monitor off while it cycles up.  I can't boot up in safe mode.  I cannot do jack.

Any suggestions?

uh.  is this a laptop?  if so, take the battery out so that it will actually turn off, then when you boot you'll actually be booting instead of resuming.

1- brand and model of pc.  speed processor, amount of ram? os version?

2- you are familiar with how to get into bios setup screen?  how to get into safe mode?

3- what type of monitor is it? lcd or crt?  so when you boot up, the monitor  power saves / turns off / resets during the period of time  preceding the "windows os splash screen"?

4- for various window's os versions, holding the "ctrl" key down while the computer is booting up until the "windows os splashscreen" will allow you to choose what run level to boot into.  this could work while running "blind".

5- i've not used "spysubtract".  when you can (burn a cd if you have to) download spybots s & d from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.htm

hijack this from http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

[AugustWest]

uh.  is this a laptop?  if so, take the battery out so that it will actually turn off, then when you boot you'll actually be booting instead of resuming.

Nope, desktop

1- brand and model of pc.  speed processor, amount of ram? os version?

Compaq 1123(?), 2.6 Ghz Celeron, 256 Meg DDR, XP

2- you are familiar with how to get into bios setup screen?  how to get into safe mode?

Yep to both.  Tried both.  Neither works.  I also tried unplugging my master hard drive so it would be forced to boot to the CD-ROM.  Didn't work.

3- what type of monitor is it? lcd or crt?  so when you boot up, the monitor  power saves / turns off / resets during the period of time  preceding the "windows os splash screen"?

CRT.  This is it exactly.

4- for various window's os versions, holding the "ctrl" key down while the computer is booting up until the "windows os splashscreen" will allow you to choose what run level to boot into.  this could work while running "blind".

I will try this.

5- i've not used "spysubtract".  when you can (burn a cd if you have to) download spybots s & d from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.htm

hijack this from http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

Thanks.

Also, my computer did not come with recovery disks.  It has given me the option of burning recovery disks a couple of times, but I procrastinated and did not do it.  (DAMN IT!)  Of course, since I can't get it to read a CD-ROM, it might not make much difference.

[arkabee]

Yep to both.  Tried both.  Neither works.  I also tried unplugging my master hard drive so it would be forced to boot to the CD-ROM.  Didn't work.

the cd that you attempted to boot from, have you booted off of it previously on this or a different system?

you mention burning, is it a single cd burner, or is a burner and an additional cd drive, dvd, etc?  if multiple, have you tried to boot off of the diff drives?

of course, cd booting may very well be moot dependent upon bios settings, and since you can't access those settings...

3- what type of monitor is it? lcd or crt?  so when you boot up, the monitor  power saves / turns off / resets during the period of time  preceding the "windows os splash screen"?

CRT.  This is it exactly.

and this activity was not happening prior to system error?

most "new and fast" machines i deal with have this problem, they have quick-post enabled in bios, and by the time the crt initializes, the pc has booted past any useful state wherein info would be put on the screen.

not to beat a dead hoss, but have you ever succesfuly gotten into bios setup on _this_ machine before?

i ask because i loath compaqs, they are a pain in the ass, because historically they have done some very annoying things, like save all bios info on a special partition of the hard drive, let you burn your own recovery media, etc.

i've always had a "problem" getting into bios on compaqs more frequently than any other brand, because they change the key sequence every so often with various models.  iirc, which i may not, they were the fuckheads who used "ctrl-alt-esc" at one point.

del, ctrl-a, ctrl-esc, f2, f1, f10

4- for various window's os versions, holding the "ctrl" key down while the computer is booting up until the "windows os splashscreen" will allow you to choose what run level to boot into.  this could work while running "blind".

I will try this.

ok.

5- i've not used "spysubtract".  when you can (burn a cd if you have to) download spybots s & d from http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.htm

hijack this from http://www.tomcoyote.org/hjt/

Thanks.

Also, my computer did not come with recovery disks.  It has given me the option of burning recovery disks a couple of times, but I procrastinated and did not do it.  (DAMN IT!)  Of course, since I can't get it to read a CD-ROM, it might not make much difference.

do you have access to a win98 pc?  goto control panel, add remove programs, and create the startup disk.
boot to that disk on the compaq, can you access the cd drives from dos?

[Va]

Also, lest you get the wrong impression, she is not computer illiterate -- she's a computer tech for a very large (brown) company.

And she clicked on a pop-up?  Was she drunk?

Sorry I can't offer any advice--since I don't use Windows I have no experience whatsoever with spyware, viruses or worms.

If you can get your machine to boot from CD-ROM, you could use a Linux LiveCD to at least have a usable system until you can get Windows reinstalled.

[Nabubrush]

AW - I'm going to send my condolences to you. I only know enough computerese to get myself in trouble. I do wish that one of you knowledgeable people was my next door neighbor.