Virus Stops Me From Running Anti-Virus Software

wordsearch

My desktop PC has been problematic for a while now. It started off by not letting me run task manager or system restore, then stopped booting up properly. I got the restore disks and attempted to install XP over it but it wouldn't let me do it.

I have Malaware Bytes on my computer but it won't let me run it. It'll let me run all my non anti virus programs though. It won't let me visit websites to do with security or downloads - and when I did manage to download another anti virus program (I assume it was Avira as that's what is on my laptop) it wouldn't let me install it, yet when I installed something from another site that was completely non security related it worked just fine.

Anythig I can do?

macman

Try running MBAM in Safe Mode with Networking (tap F8 at start up to get the Safe Mode options).
You could try the same with your AV software.
NB: you should not have more than one AV program installed at once as they will fight each other. Remove all but one.

maximus0983

Start your computer up in safe mode (tap F8 during startup) and try to run malware from there.

Make sure you click safe mode with networking so you can update malware before running it.

wordsearch

It won't let me run safe mode. Every time I try to I just get a big black screen but with safe mode written in the corners. It stays like this forever - I've even wondered off for an hour just in case and when I came back it was still like that.

macman

That is what safe mode looks like, a cut down version of the normal OS. What can you access from that screen?

ThomasK31ly

You could download Avira portable to a flashdrive and run it from that.

aliEnRIK

Download HIJACK THIS (Make sure you click 'DOWNLOAD LATEST VERSION')
http://www.filehippo.com/download_hijackthis/
Click DO A SCAN AND SAVE A LOGFILE (Takes seconds) then post the log so we can see whats running
(do NOT do anything else with Hijack but scan and post the FULL log)

(Or try to DOWNLOAD in SAFE mode but RUN in NORMAL mode)

aliEnRIK

Also ~ go here

http://www.gt500.org/malwarebytes/database.jsp

Download the file to your desktop and OPEN the file. It should auto update Malwarebytes

Then RIGHT click Malwarebytes and RENAME to 'QWERTY' (Making the whole name 'QWERTY.EXE')
Try running that in normal then safe mode

HoofeHearted

ThomasK31ly wrote: »

You could download Avira portable to a flashdrive and run it from that.

Another alternative is to download
http://dl.antivir.de/down/vdf/rescuecd/rescuecd.exe

This is a regularly updated program from Avira which when run, will ask you to put a cd into the cd burner drive and create a bootable disk. Then boot the pc from it and run an Avira scan with the latest definitions.

wordsearch

Macman - I know what safemode is like, I mean literally, it's just a black screen but with it in the corner. I can't access anything because that's literally all there is. Nothing loads aside from a big empty black screen.

AlienRik - It is not letting me access the first site, it has decided it is a security one and is blocking it. I will try the second one in a bit, right now it has gone back to not letting me turn the computer on properly. But it has not let me run Malwarebytes normally, but I will try renaming it and seeing if that confuses it when I can get into my computer.

wordsearch

HoofeHearted wrote: »

Another alternative is to download
http://dl.antivir.de/down/vdf/rescuecd/rescuecd.exe

This is a regularly updated program from Avira which when run, will ask you to put a cd into the cd burner drive and create a bootable disk. Then boot the pc from it and run an Avira scan with the latest definitions.

My laptop does not have a burner drive but I will try and see if some friends will be able to do that for me. I had a look at the website for it though - will it work on my computer as it is windows xp and that says it is linux based?