recovery after severe virus

MJFlint
MJFlint Member Posts: 3 New User
in 2014 Archives

My wife's Aspire laptop has been severely affected by something named "PWS:Win32/zbotgen!AP.

 

Removal seems to be particularly difficult since it seems to be spoofing the web sites that I have found to assist in te removal, and I have come to the reluctant decision that the best solution is to format the drive and reinstall the system from the recovery dvd's created when she first received the computer. Ought I also re-format the (virtual) D: Drive along with the C: or will this occur automatically?

 

Thank you

 

Martin F

 

[edited for privacy]

Answers

  • HK53T
    HK53T Member Posts: 767 Die Hard WiFi Icon

    just do complete recovery and should take care of it

  • grsteven
    grsteven Member Posts: 3 New User

    My wife has picked up this virus, now she is unable to login to her loptop at all.  She turns it on it goes to the ACER screen than the screen goes blank than the ACER screen comes on again and it goes blank over and over again. I ordered the recovery disks but they don't boot either.  Any ideas?

  • Vince53
    Vince53 Member Posts: 805 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    Don't reformat yet.

     

    Microsoft reports that their newest Malicious Software Removal Tool will get rid of it, so try downloading it first: http://www.microsoft.com/security/pc-security/malware-removal.aspx

     

    But if that doesn't work:

     

    First, go to Recycle Bin and empty it so you can keep track of what you're doing.

     

    Press Control-Alt-Delete and see what your start-up`programs are, and disable or delete the virus if you can find it. You can't delete a running program, but if you can cripple it, you can restart and then delete it. If you can't delete the folder, go to the folder and delete everything inside it that you can, and then reboot and try again.

     

    Do deep scans with ALL of the following: your current AV, Malwarebytes, CCleaner, Glary Utilities, and SuperAntiSpyware. Download the free Win Patrol program (all of these programs are free) and check your start-up and "Recent" folders. If the virus appears in "Recent," select "Delete on next start-up" and reboot.

     

    Go to Computer-C Drive-Windows 32 and look for the virus there.

     

    If you can't get into your computer, try entering Safe Mode. If that doesn't work, borrow a legal copy of your operating system and reboot with it in the optical drive. MAYBE it will take you to an options menu.

  • MDacerGuy
    MDacerGuy Member Posts: 39

    Tinkerer

    why doesnt it boot?

     

    and you have the boot order set to go to the cd rom drive?

  • grsteven
    grsteven Member Posts: 3 New User

    Thanks so much for the input guys, but I didn't explain good enough.  When I turn the V3731 laptop on it flashes the ACER screen, than to a blank screen.  Than the ACER screen, than to a blank screen.  I have tried ALT 10, I have tried the system recovery disks, no matter what I do it just keeps showing ACER than it turns blank, than it shows ACER than it turns blank. Could this be the hard drive? 

  • Vince53
    Vince53 Member Posts: 805 Practitioner WiFi Icon

    Steven, I doubt that it is the hard drive. A hard drive failure would give you a blank screen and stay there.

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