Hiloti Trojan

siamese0109

Hi
Thanks for that - didn't get in last night - flipping Xmas getting in the way of me sorting out the PC! I'll give the next solution a try first but I do have a disc if i ultimately need to re-format....... just want to leave it to last resort because of some of the stuff I have on there :beer:

fiddiwebb

Hiloti may be lurking in your system restore files, if that is the case then you should turn off system restore and re-scan but if you are having problems booting now then as advised formatting and reinstalling windows may be the easiest option.

mumslave

When I recently repaired a computer for a friend, it had 90 infections of various types and once removed, I had the same problem, it wouldnt connect to the internet. Eventually i used a winsock fix and that worked:

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/winsockxpfix.html

HO87

If you have files on the same drive as Windows and you are facing a reinstall scenario then before doing so you could download a "Live CD" version of Linux. You can run this from your DVD drive without installing it (although you will need to set your machine to boot from the DVD/CD drive first). This will give you access to all of your files allowing you ample time to copy them over either on to an external hard drive or memory stick. Avoid copying over any system based files for obvious reasons.

To the uninitiated I would suggest PC Linux OS (this is not a plug, btw, as I use Ubuntu) the graphical interface of which is pretty similar to Windows and you'll feel basically familiar with. You can download it here in .iso file format so you'll need something like Nero to burn it - although there are other options. When you do burn it make sure that you select to burn the .iso image file not just copy file to disc. If you can't burn iso images then you could always obtain one of the current Linux computer magazines (Linux Format or Linux Magazine) from somewhere like W H Smith's which always include free DVD's with Live CD versions - make sure you don't chose to install it as the default option will overwrite your Windows partition.

siamese0109

I'm going to whisper this just in case but I think it may be cleared! :j
I had a little look around the net to see what was said about the screen hanging at the 'loading your settings' bit and picked up a couple of tips from there as well so........... I have no patience so I don't know which of these actually did the trick BUT I ran Glary Utilities, I created a new user account and I uninstalled and re-installed Avast and then I did Windows update and re-booted. I tried the new account first and it opened fine so I swapped Users and opened up one of the original accounts without a problem either - I'll run a full MBAM scan over night as well just to double check
thanks everyone for your help! :T