Desperate-have trojan and can't even boot from disk to wipe HD

12 years ago

Dell Dimension 8200

WinXP Home edition

Zone alarm

MSE

He doesn't know how he got it, but yesterday, my husband's computer began displaying messages from "XP Antivirus 2012," apparently a type of malware trying to make us think the computer is infected and pay for their help in removing it. It won't let us view any Internet sites or open software.

I decided it would be very hard to use my computer to try to do something for his, which would be our only hope of removing the beast (at this point, both my anger and despair are running high), so we decided to wipe the HD and do a clean install of WinXP, for which we have the installation disk. I have managed to transfer the most important documents and pictures to CDs.

But now the problem is that although I can enter Setup, using F2, it has proven impossible to change the boot order so as to boot from the CD-ROM. I can "select" with the arrow keys, but Enter does nothing, so I am unable to wipe the HD.

I remember that last year when I bought my new Inspiron and gave my old Dell (which is in trouble now) to hubby, I had learned somewhere that there is a key combination that can be used to wipe a hard disk with some versions of Win XP, and in fact, that did work for his computer, very easily.

I have been trying to find out what that key may have been, so as to bypass the boot sequence problem, but to no avail. Would anyone here know what it is? A large part of our living comes from translation work, and an unusable PC is a great trial!

UPDATE: Before posting this, I found a site that suggested ways to get rid of the trojan (http://deletemalware.blogspot.com/2011/06/remove-xp-antispyware-2012-xp-internet.html), so I did the reg.fix it suggested and was then able to reinstall and run Superantispyware, having renamed it as suggested, and the trojan appears to have been deleted.

I am able to access Internet sites and even downloaded Malwarebytes Antimalware, but NOW, probably from what I did to the registry, I can't install and run it because whenever I click on its setup or ANY program, I get a box asking me "what program to open it with". I feel like tearing my hair out.

I am still unable to change the boot sequence, so cannot wipe the HD and reinstall WinXP, as I still want to do in order to fix this new problem of having to assign programs to open programs! Duh and grrrr!

Hope someone can help with this!

(I want to thank the people who suggested REVO for my own previously-posted computer problem. I have downloaded it and will use it as soon as I can get hubby's PC up and running again.)

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Comments (3)

chas045
12 years ago
Your post reminds me how out of touch I have become with this kind of problem (and I am just posting about a possible win install too). However like you, I remember some things from my past and I suspect that your problem is probably a simple fix. At least for the time being, I think reinstalling windows is extreme and since you have a second working computer you should wait for some of these other clever folks to help. I'll bet there is some utility to help with this but if not, there must be a way to mnually link particular extensions to specific programs, and for the time being you would probably only need to make a couple of links (but don't ask me how).
ravencajun Zone 8b TX
12 years ago
please go to this link register and post in the area I link you to tell them all of the above put a link back to this post if you can, they will tell you step by step how to clean this infection you do not have to wipe the hard drive! You can do this, they will help you run the special programs that you need to run.
Analysis and Malware Removal
once you have gone there please only follow the directions given to you there so there is no confusion and conflicts.
If you have any problem I am there also.
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biwako_of_abi
Original Author
12 years ago
Thanks. I have just done that, Raven. I guess my husband will be using my computer for a day or two, hopefully not more!

Desperate-have trojan and can't even boot from disk to wipe HD

Comments (3)

chas045

ravencajun Zone 8b TX

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Desperate-have trojan and can't even boot from disk to wipe HD

Comments (3)

chas045

ravencajun Zone 8b TX

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biwako_of_abiOriginal Author

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biwako_of_abi
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