Huge problem...

K

King of Creation

Vault Fossil
So through various methods, and by various people, my family computer is infested with large amounts of horrific garbage created by netvermin. Viruses, spyware, adware, whatever. I ran the standard programs to try and get rid of the stuff that was on there: Adaware, Spybot, Spysweeper, and CWShredder for this stupid ass CWS.searchx About:Blank browswer highjacker. Well, it was all in vain. CWS.searchx comes back like 30 minutes after running CWShredder, there's this stupid Backdoor.Trojan that will not leave, no matter what I do, and lots of other stupid shit.

Basically, I want to know: Is it possible to completely revert my entire system back to the original factory state: nothing on the harddrive but an unadulterated version of Windows. The trick is: Is it possible to do this without any sort of Windows CD or anything, cause I don't know where mine is.


I'm using Windows XP Professional on a Dell Dimension XPS desktop. If you can help me out and need more info, just ask.
 
Doesnt XP have like, a system restore where it goes back to previously saved states?

I'm not sure how that effects your registry though...
 
XP does have a system restore... however... I do not believe it will help.. as the system restore generally does not delete any saved data. At least it has never done so to me. Though... maybe if you look though help... it'll work.

The other thing is... if you know what you are looking for you CAN manually remove a lot of adware and spyware... I've had to do it myself. It IS time consuming though.. unless you know what you are looking for... or are like me... determined to find the vermin and will look up what everything you are not familiar with that seems suspicious is.

Hope this helps.
 
It needs to be removed from your registry, then.

If you know what it is... you can probably find it on one of the major anti-virus sites... they'll tell you what exactly you are looking for in the registry and what you need to remove.

Or.. in the case of one thing I had, I could not delete it. I went to my fiance on that and we did something involving run once... which I do not recommend... and can't explain properly... so if you don't know what you are doing on that... I don't suggest that.

I hope this helps.
 
1)Boot in safe mode.
2)Kill everything left in the Task Manager that isn't absolutely necessary
3)Run Hijack This, check off everything that looks suspicious and clean them. Hell, just check everything, it's easier to re-install Internet Explorer than to have to clean your system again.
4)Run Spybot, Adaware, virus scanner. Write down everything that these programs fail to get rid of.
5)Type in whatever programs/trojans/spyware is left into Google (USE FIREBIRD OR MOZILLA!!!!!), usually the first couple of links will tell you how to get rid of them. Failing that, try to manually delete the files causing the problem. And failing that, if you know what you're doing, use the Registry Editor.
6)Reboot and if everything is clean, good. If not spring for a new copy of XP, then format and re-install.

I have a shared computer at work, and I have to clean out tons of crap at least 3 times a week that afternoon and overnight shifts manage to get the computer infected with. Steps 1 through 5 have never failed me, though sometimes I have to get a little creative to get rid of everything.
 
Click Start -> Run and run 'regedit'. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Run. Now, delete all suspicious-looking registry keys you find there. If you can't find the Run folder there, try HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

If that doesn't help, download freeware anti-virus software (I recommend AVG) - it should destroy the trojan. After your problem has been resolved, you should definitely get a good firewall.
 
I downloaded AVG like you said Ratty, and it detected the Trojan as soon as it was done loading. Only problem was, when I went to run AVG to remove it, my computer bluescreened. Then, when I restarted, it bluescreened as soon as I logged in. It kept doing this until I rebooted in Safe Mode, and unistalled AVG. I then went into msconfig and unchecked basically everything from the windows startup section. When I restarted in Normal mode, I moved everything I needed from that hard drive to another one, cause, luckily, I found my Windows CD's, and all the other Dell CD's like drivers and whatnot. There were in a shopping bad in my basement (go figure). So, I'm gonna just wipe that hard drive clean and start fresh.

Thanks for all the suggestions, though! :wink:
 
AVG did the same thing to me when I tried it. I was going to try and figure out why, but then I realized that if it was capable of screwing up my computer that badly I'd be better off having nothing to do with it.
 
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