my computer has been hijacked!!! HELLLLLLP

[wannacatchem]

LAst Feb I baought a new Dell Dimension E510. First thing I did was put Mozilla, adaware and AVG on it.

I dont use the computer all that much, my daughter lives on it and would suffer severe withdrawls if it wasn't working.

This morning I turn it on, open mozilla and iFish is not my home page!

I run adawre and find 54 infestations.

I look for AVG in the system tray, (its scheduled to run once a week) and its not there. I try to start it from the desktop and it won't run. I download it again, and it won't run! I try to run the virus checker that came with the computer....it won't run!

The virus programs come up normally, then shut down in about a second.

Any help or do I take my new computer out behind the barn and shoot it...........
I don't know crap about computers/software........

[wootersen]

Of all the problems you listed, I think your biggest problem is that ifish is not your home page. That sucks man ! :grin:

[wannacatchem]

Thanks for the help, woot. Shouldn't you be working? :grin:

[Bootstrap Bill]

I bought a Dell E510 back in February too and it was plauged with multiple problems and tech support was no help, even the certified tech that came to my house was baffled. After about 3 weeks a new mother board and memory I had had it. I eventually chatted online with customer care(chatting online is faster than calling them) I demanded to speak to a supervisor and after 3 days of that they finally agreed to replace it. If I were you make sure you don't have a virus and demand dell to replace it. Good Luck

Kyle Munroe

[JustCallMeDave]

Sounds like you've got a bad case of the virus infestations. Often times they will neuter your antivirus software so that it can't work anymore. Here's what I'd do:

Step 1) Go here and do their free online virus scan. I'll bet that it'll find something, and hopefully it'll tell you WHAT it finds.

Step 2) Boot into Safe Mode (those are the instructions for Windows XP, but should work under any Windows OS from Win95 forward). Try running/installing your antivirus software from safe mode. If you try and run it and it won't, then uninstall it and reinstall from Safe Mode and then scan.

Step 3) If you STILL can't get your antivirus software to work and you don't have working boot disks to work with, go download Ultimate Boot CD and burn THAT to CD on a computer that isn't infected. Reboot the computer with that CD in there and use the antivirus tools on there to see if you can get yourself all cleaned up.

If you don't use this computer very much but your daughter does a LOT, then you may need to talk to her about file attachment security. Sounds like if she's the general user that she might be how this happened.

[EULACHON]

I run my addaware and virus deep scan every 2 days at 2 in the am on auto pilot.

When you get her fixed you may try that.

PAul

[98ramtough]

Sounds like you have a Homepage hijacker trojan and a couple other viruses. It is common for viruses to disable your antivirus scan and change your homepage. Some take even a professional hours to remove. I would suggest backing up your documents to CD/DVD and restoring the computer. Faster and cheaper. Best of luck! It is not a hardware problem, thats definately a software virus/spyware problem.

Mike

[The Chub]

Sounds like it is time to reformat. One year without proper cleaning can lead to alot of problems. I try to reformat once a year just to start fresh again. You'd be amazed at the crap that lodges itself in your system.

[IDWITHELD]

In some cases the hijack software will disable your burner, and prevent you from using the explorer. I would expect your registry is completely fouled at this point. Might you have a recent restore point?

I run:
Black Ice firewall, AVG anti virus, Adware SE, Spyhunter. Often each of these finds different items. There is no single spyware software program that gets them all.

[98ramtough]

I have been impressed by Panda's AV and anti spyware as well.

[ajfishfinder]

Lots O Luck---I spent 34 phone calls totaling over 10 hours with Norton, Dell, and Microsoft trying to fix my problems. Never did completly figure it out.

Big lesson learned---NEVER let your kid on your work computer!!! Over a week of "down time" can cost you more than just time and frustration.

My kid suffered withdrawl for about a week. Now that the sun is almost out, he barely misses it.

[newfly]

i've posted this site before, but i suggest you bookmark it. go there and they will help you. the reference is to the page that will help walk you through the process. you will need to register, then follow their instructions. they have a program that you can run, it will create a text file that lists all the running programs. you post it, that the experts will tell you how to clean your computer up, then there is an article about how to keep it cleaned up.

these guys are experts. it takes a couple of days to go through the process since you have to post back and forth but again, bookmark the page, these guys are the experts on spyware and malware. these are the guys that the experts go to for help and they created this site just to help people out. it is free.

http://www.help2go.com/component/option,com_forum/Itemid,32/page,viewtopic/t,9709/

[wannacatchem]

JCMD hooked me up.....Again!

Thanks Dave

[JustCallMeDave]

[Pete]

Good Job, JCMD! You're CTO for a reason!

[8-guage]

Yes JCMD, that Trend Micro anti-virus site works great!
Thanks for that suggestion. It found and repaired viruses and spyware that AVG, Adaware and SpyBot didn't find.
Also to Newfly, for the helptogo.com site. Two new tools for my comp!