red stop icon in system tray....help

**d_shamrock** · 14th February 2009

Hi all, i have this red stop icon in my system tray that pops up a ballon saying Security warning, Your computer may be infected with harmful or unwanted software, i have read on other sites that its malware virus, that reinvents itself when deleted, i have symantec norton anti virus that pops up saying high risk, but it cant actually remove it, i located the file it says it was in and when trying to delete it it says write protected cant remove, it has since moved to several other files. I have read through various forums on how to remove it, but they all have different ways, iam looking for a simple and easy way to try and get rid of it, the easiest way the better as iam not the greatest with these things. Thanks all in advance.

**beerman** · 14th February 2009

Firstly what virus does Norton say it is?

And have you tried booting from a live CD like BartPE to delete the files?

**Greyfox** · 14th February 2009

Firstly have you tried doing a system restore? If not do so.

If problem still persists

Downlaod in install malwarebytes http://malwarebytes.org/

also install combofix http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/comb...o-use-combofix

boot into safe mode and run malwarebytes scanner and then combofix.

Report if it picks anything up.

**d_shamrock** · 14th February 2009

Hi mate, just turned on infected pc, i cant even get to see what norton is saying now, when pc boots up the screen fills with messages from symantec email proxy saying scanning message 1 of 1, it then pops up saying that some messages failed to send, as i said before iam not the greatest at these things, but it looks like my pc is done!! I did try to connect to internet and my home page has changed to postarticles.net, but page did not load, major help now needed. After i scanned it yeseterday with norton it found four trojans which it could not remove, i also scanned with adaware and it found malware which it said it had removed but it looks likes it back. Thanks all in advance for any help.

**Argyll** · 14th February 2009

Probably better downloading Darik's boot and nuke from another pc. Copy to cd and run the infected pc from the cd. You'll lose everything but at least you'll know it will finally be clean (hopefully)

**Greyfox** · 14th February 2009

Yep afraid to say that it seems like your comp is royally fucked. Even if you did get it sorted there's a high chance that all infections would not have been dealt with and would be lurking around in your system. Best to reformat the harddrive and reinstall windows.

**d_shamrock** · 14th February 2009

Thanks all, looks like reinstall of windows is the only way, years of music and films etc will be lost, is there any way to remove these before reinstall? Cheers.

**Greyfox** · 14th February 2009

You could try and backup stuff from your comp that you need before you format but remember the stuff you backup may well be infected. You could also attach a portable HD to your comp and put stuff onto that.

**TotallyRandom** · 14th February 2009

Yep Reinstall Windows is the only way to remove this

could just by a new hard drive install windows on that then slave your second hard drive run a virus scan on second drive and then only copy over your music and Movies then format the rest as it will probably still be infected
get your self NOD32 anti Virus for after your reinstall must better than Norton.

**Hangman** · 14th February 2009

I agree, Buy a cheap external HDD and copy everything you want to keep to that. They reformat the HDD and re-install windows. I would highly recommend you don't use norton as IMO it is crap. If you don't have much money and can't find a Free copy of NOD32

they the free version of AVG would be better. Once installed scan the external HDD and remove any infections before moving the files back to your PC.

Also use this as a learning experience and perform regular backups of all the files that you want to keep, so if this ever happens again at least you will no all your important items are safe.

Good luck with the re-install.

**Wompastompa** · 14th February 2009

firstly download spybot search and destroy, and latest definitions

secondly AVG antivirus and also latest definitions

If you cant update defs then download from another computer and save to a memory stick

Install from USB if you cant install and update then restart in safe mode and scan the computer in safe mode

Voila

**d_shamrock** · 15th February 2009

thanks all for the feedback, going to do a reinstall, and then go and cry for a few days!

**danthescan** · 15th February 2009

Cant you just copy things to DVDs.They are cheap enough these days.
As for Free Nod 32,you are a member here so you should find it.
Now i don't know what size Drive you have but,partitions are a good idea for this kind of problem in the future.

Then Nuke its ass.better than cleaning out shit only to find more.