A virus that will not clean

[hangmeup]

I've been told by McAfee support that I have a virus, since my virus scan is dead when I click on it, along with other applications, too. Also, the botton 1/4 of my screen is now black.

I have run several scans using various tools suggested by the forum users and McAfee tech support, but no luck detecting a virus. I even purchased a boxed version of McAfee as a last resort, and it didn't detect a virus either. The last scan I tried was in WinXP command prompt using McAfee's latest DAT files. The results showed 115,867 total files, 49,805 clean, and 66,048 not scanned. Only about 15 files were listed, one was C:\Windows|System32\Config\Default....file could not be opened.

Next stop - reformat? Could it be that the 'virus' has been cleaned but the files remain damaged? Or might the virus still be lurking in the damaged files?

Any input will be greatly appreciated!

 

[turbo45]

If you have your modem back working, try this:
1. Go to

http://www.pandasoftware.com

2. Use their (Free) on-line virus check. It takes a long time, but it is thorough.

 

[AVChap]

Did they say which virus it is? Or is this related to your other thread? If it is, try to get the Stinger utility here:

http://www.mcafeeb2b.com/naicommon/avert/avert-research-center/tools.asp#stinger

HTH, AVChap
... my $1 worth of advise, 2cents isn't enough due to inflation

 

[hangmeup]

Yes, this is the same problem as my last post, and Stinger didn't find anything. Oddly enough, the new boxed version I installed now has a circle and cross over it after I rebooted - and it doesn't work. I really can't think of any other hardware or software issue that would behave this way. I have MS Office documents and whole folders which have completely disappeared from view in Explore, but I was able to see them through my Quickbooks Pro (for a while).

McAfee told me to boot to the floppy and choose DOS, then scan. Problem is, DOS is never an option when I boot to floppy. I've tried both booting to CD and also 3 1/2 disk (it's an XP system and I had to create the disks). I have also been told that safe mode/command prompt is not real DOS, but virtual DOS, and it will not work the same.

One last question - if I reformat the drive and start over, that should eliminate any virus on the hard drive, right? Thank you all for your help!

 

[THoey]

To be able to boot from floppy, you may have to change the settings of your CMOS. And as far as formatting the drive and then reinstalling, if you are not careful, the virus may be in memory and recreate itself on the newly formatted disk. There has to be a way around this if it really is a virus. Terry
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