Whats kind of Wares or Virus would cause this?

[religion2386]

I have XP on a HP Pavillion Laptop. A older version of IE. I downloaded Firefox and installed it. Opened it up, but all I get is "This page cannot be displayed". I know you can help with me torrent stuff, but Utorrent also loads up, but the torrents stay on 0.0% and never download. I downloaded Google Chrome, installed it and got the same thing as Firefox pretty much. Downloaded AIM so I wouldnt have to use meebo.com to chat. Installed it, went to sign on, but no internet connection is what it said. Im on the laptop Im speaking about right now, obviously on the internet. I was on the internet browsing through IE when everything that I stated above was failing due to no connectivity.

Ive tried Housecall Trend Micro twice and both times during different processes it just stops scanning or working.

I downloaded and installed AVG 8, but when I did the only thing on my computer that had internet connectivity (IE) no longer worked. I didnt care really about that, because I just wanted to use it to scan my computer. I couldnt scan my computer because the "Virus Vault" was "Outdated" and I couldnt scan for updates because SOMETHING wouldnt let access the internet.

Ive read other post pertaining to my situation and scaned my computer with Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, but it didnt find anything.

Im fairly decent with computers, and I dont know what to do or try now other than reformatting.

PLEASE HELP!

 

[jikifreak]

Try downloading the latest Avast! Home Edition(free) and do a boot time scan. See if that helps?

 

[religion2386]

Ok i will do that man...Ill chime back in a lil later with the results....The boot scan will be a option once I get it installed?

 

[berry120]

To be honest, reformatting only takes about half a day and if you haven't done it in a while with XP anyway I'd be tempted to just take that route. Lots of people seem to go to the end of the earth to avoid it but it's really not that bad *shrug*.

As for actually removing the virus, have you tried scanning in safe mode?

 

[Equinox1354]

To be honest, reformatting only takes about half a day

Wow, half a day? It should only take about 3 hours...

 

[berry120]

Should've been more specific

I'm talking about the whole process, backing everything up, wiping, reinstalling the OS, putting everything back on, installing drivers, updates and reinstalling applications. Takes me half a day, and I've got a LOT of stuff that needs putting on (mainly dev stuff.)

Word of advice - if you're running Gentoo it'll take longer But if you're running Gentoo, you'd know that!

 

[religion2386]

yea i can do that no prob its just its my moms laptop and she has alot of pics vids and school stuff so i wanted to try and get the virus off. I have a 500G external I can transport her stuff to while I reformat if that be the case. I just hate doing it because I never seem to get all the drivers back on what ever it is Im reformatting

 

[berry120]

Have you tried scanning in safe mode?

 

[religion2386]

Ok I just downloaded Avast and it wouldnt let me install it for w/e reason

 

[pitbull30]

Ive had success in the past using these.

http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_bart_cd.html

http://www.superantispyware.com/

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php