Virus on my parents' computer (HELP NEEDED)

[Sherkel]

So, according to my dad, yesterday OneCare asked to Quarantine a virus. He said yes, and restarted his computer later. When it started back up, no programs would run, it would not connect to the Internet, and the Control Panel is blank. When OneCare is run it says it has been "stopped". We looked through Processes and found nothing out of the ordinary. Suggestions on what to do?

[Lauryn the Arisen]

Hmm, sounds like the antivirus hasn't stopped the virus at all, just made it worse. If you are able to run a full system scan, to locate the virus's location, would be a start. What's the virus called?

[Princess Torchic Owl Lover ☽ ❤]

Perhaps the virus might have infected another file, for example I think Rundll32.exe manages how executables use dlls. Perhaps you should have a look in your system32 folder and see if anything is missing or been rewritten, I'm truly not an expert at this sort of thing though, perhaps you should hire a computer person to come round, I once had this pesky virus which would shut the computer down in exactly one minute after I logged on.

[Lauryn the Arisen]

Sometimes viruses are vunerble in Safe Mode. When my 98 would get bombed with viruses, it wouldn't load a damn thing, so I went to Safe Mode, did a scan and it sorted the problem. Try and Torchikens said, sometimes some viruses tend to re-write things, so check your files first.

[Sherkel]

How should I see if anything has been written? I'll try Safe Mode though.

[Lauryn the Arisen]

Eh, good point. Well, when my computer died on me, I checked the system options and they were changed, but try Safe Mode, to make sure the virus isn't hiding anywhere.

[Princess Torchic Owl Lover ☽ ❤]

If it lets you perhaps you could have a look at the file size of some main components on your computer and compare it with the file size of those on your infected computer but yes that could be tedious so as Yami suggested I would try safe mode first.

[Sherkel]

We couldn't find how to do Safe Mode (I don't have experience with Vista), but he decided a System Restore would be a good idea, and we found a way to do it from the startup screen rather than the Control Panel. It now says it restored it, but now it's been on a black screen for god knows for long. Not off, but all black. No flashing underscore or anything. The cylinder light (whatever it's called) is flashing at a steady pace, which is a bit unassuring.

[Lauryn the Arisen]

It's the same with XP, keep pressing F8. Eh, Windows 7 tends to do that - black screen of death.

[Sherkel]

OK. Now this is bad. It's a black screen, but...you can move the cursor.

[Lauryn the Arisen]

It seems like the Restore hasn't helped one bit. Ugh, best to restart, keep pressing F8 until you get the advanced options, to see if Safe Mode will load, rather than Windows.

[Fivex]

OK. Now this is bad. It's a black screen, but...you can move the cursor.

Press control+alt+delete, see if anythin comes up.
I doubt anything will, but it will help to try.

It seems like the Restore hasn't helped one bit. Ugh, best to restart, keep pressing F8 until you get the advanced options, to see if Safe Mode will load, rather than Windows.

It's not allways F8. For me, it's F12
And safe mode is windows lol.
Just mash all the F buttons one by one. One should bring up the bios settings. You don't want that, keep going.

[Sherkel]

Eh, too late now. He moved the important stuff to a Flash Drive and a few DVDs and did a system recovery thing (factory settings). I'll lock this then.