Possible Virus / restore problem

[tgalownia]

Pardon as Operating Systems are not my strong point.

I am working with a friend (OS is XP Pro) who thought he had the blaster virus. He didn't have Virus protection on computer at the time. I tried to run Blaster patch last night and that didn't help. Issues are below. . any clue what is going on or how to get restore to work?

He tried to restore to when computer was originally bought. AOL . Financial information etc was still on computer after restore

There are only three icons on desktop My Documents internet explorer and can't remember the third (sorry)

When putting a shortcut on desktop he is getting message that it is "Write Protected"

Task Manager will stay open for only approx 5 seconds

Starting up the computer gets C:\\Documents & Settings \Owner\Desktop is not accessible. Access Denied.

He tried to troubleshoot so I am not sure what all he tried (as he couldn't remember also) Some programs will open while others will not. Most will not

Sorry to be so cryptic but this is all the information I was able to get.
Any clue as to what virus (or him trying to get rid of virus) may have caused this? Any clue on possible fixes??

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

 

[jrbarnett]

If you use F8 when the boot screen comes up and start it up in safe mode, can your friend then get into msconfig to remove any dodgy software from loading at bootup or login.

If he still has no antivirus software, I can recommend AVG 6 Free Edition from

http://www.grisoft.com

After installing a-v protection, I would also disable system restore, reboot then re enable it in case any dodgy software has got itself into the system restore setup.

John