Susie, I have searched & can't find any Avast on it. I also went into the folders. I just did a search on this one & there is quite a bit Norton leftover on it still. AVG is on too & was working when I stopped using this one. I hope to have another one Monday if everyone would just get well..I don't drive (never learned) & all my rides are truly sick. Cat, I think I will try the XP tonite. I do know it has a LOT of problems & need to be started over..it is not worth spending $150 to do that. Nite before last I was trying to fill out a form to order something.. it took over 30 minutes to do it.. The cursor kept freezing plus it wouldn't scroll without freezing. Some on here can vouch for all the problems I have had. If I can get it running I can at least check to see if there is anything else I want saved. I tried to keep things saved as I knew this day was coming. Yes I know now the APC is probably why it wouldn't turn on but I don't think that had anything to do with the other problems. The XP took about 20 minutes to reboot.. this 98 is very fast doing it. Thanks, Dar

In the past few days I have been visiting some "questionable" sites in hopes of finding a certain prescription drug for a friend at a reasonable price. It is an older generic drug, but is one that is suddenly in very short supply. To make a long story short, Avast and/or Chrome also warned me regarding two different sites before I proceeded to open them. I had deliberately disregarded WOT's ratings, knowing that they automatically condemn all foreign pharmacies. But these two sites obviously contained malware, or I would not have received the warnings. Unfortunately, I was unsuccessful in finding the medication at any of the foreign pharmacies except for one, and the price there was as expensive as it is at her local pharmacy. It's a darned shame that this is happening to people who need certain medications desperately. I understand that some cancer drugs are also in very short supply, or even unavailable. By the way, there is an organization which rates foreign pharmacies, and using their rating, I was able to obtain a medication for myself at 1/3 the cost in the US, even with my Medicare insurance plan. These pharmacies do require a prescription from your physician and will not ship without such.

Wow. So glad I posted. I didn't even realize the rootkit thing was a big issue (and I'm not sure that's what I saw). Avast was scanning - and it didn't even come up with the usual alarming "found something" screen. It just seemed to pause and said this had to be stopped/removed first. It never even showed up as an infected file. So it seems I have to deal with this rootkit issue first - before the possible device driver issue - or system restore. Is it possible that this rootkit issue is the only one going on? Thank you for the caution about not using my password. I didn't do any online purchases. The only password I would have entered was for my gmail account. Luckily I don't use that password for my commerce, banking, etc accounts. So I want to be sure the order of things: update and run malwarebytes first? then do the LzD removal? I'm not sure if that's an online scan program - or is there actually a company I will be asking assistance from? Don't know if this is related. Earlier today when I was using the computer (my main PC) do look at emails, it logged me out and said my gmail was locked and would be inactive due to too much activity (from pop accounts) - or browser compatibility issues (I have Firefox and have had some gmail/Firefox issues from time to time). As it happens, I can still access my gmail account from my laptop. I didn't try again from my PC - and itseems that I shouldn't for now. Now I had also used my gmail from my laptop, my daughter's pc and my smartphone - all just today. I assumed that's why I got logged off. But could this be a result of my gmail account getting hijacked (or whatever it would be?). Thanks everyone for your timely responses. I didn't realize it was quite this serious when I first posted - just that my PC said it was serious. Lynn. PS - used2bsane - I am not that knowledgeable so your instructions above were great and much needed. It seems that I have to address the rootkit issue first, however. I'll be posting back with my progress.

Could it be that these were previously "hidden files" that you chose to make visible? I think Avast does not scan hidden files. If no infection was shown, I would not be concerned about those that were not scanned. I'm sure you also scan with other programs that search for malware, so don't be overly concerned. Just my opinion, of course.