Sorry

I have used that, it is great and very very quick. I looked for the link but couldnt find the free copy.

Nikki, people on here beg for RL money all the time. We have gotten to a point where when we see a post like this, we jump all over the poster. If it's a virus you have, it can be cleaned up very easily. If you don't have anything on your PC that you cannot replace, I would suggest putting in your restore CD, booting up and letting it put your computer back to the way it was the day you bought it. Dell has great tech support and can walk you through on how to get this started if you are not sure. If it's a virus, that will definitely take care of it.

EDITED - Sorry Amara... didn't mean to upset you with the post.

All of the cleaning in the world is not going to help the PC. You mentioned in the first post that the only program that will run on your pc is Firefox. This would indicate that it is not a gag "fake" virus or even a worm that wants to be spread without killing the host. The virus has been attacking system files and even if you can kill the virus, the damaged files will be left behind.

Wait until you have the misfortune of downloading a virus that is specifically designed to kill a computer. It only takes a few minutes before you get the BSD (blue screen of death) and there is absolutely nothing you can do unless you realize it within the first few seconds. Fortunately those are very rare because they do not get a chance to replicate and spread. I un-affectionately call those, FU viruses because that is exactly what they are designed for.

ZoneAlarm is horrible and nothing but a trouble maker.

Thanks to Argent i learned that Zone Alarm was the reason my laptop could not print over the network since June.

I strongly recommend Avast. It integrates with everything nicely and is unobtrusive. It also does not block basic functions of your network from working without so much as a message letting you know "hey printing over the network may be impaired".

This may not be the simple solution you think it is. She said she has a Dell, running Vista. That means it's new. I have a Dell, running XP still, not Vista. The internal hard drive is not IDE. The CD-RW and DVD-RW drives, however, are IDE. As it's configured, and I've gotten this both from Dell tech support and outside sources who are frankly far more knowledgeable than the people at Dell tech support can even dream of, you can't boot from any IDE device. It's physically impossible without adding hardware to your machine.

So I'd bet money that she's got the same problem, that she can't boot from anything but the internal hard drive, and as such, your suggestion likely can't be done at all on her machine.

To Nikki:

Your best bet most likely, painful as it sounds, will be to totally wipe everything from the formatted partition on your hard drive that you boot from, and totally reinstall the entire system from scratch using either the installation CD's that you got with the machine, or (this is the more likely case with Dell) the installation partition on your hard drive that they put there. If it is using one of those partitions, you'll see a message when you first turn on or restart the machine telling you to push something like F12 to access the installation partition. Use that and totally wipe everything out, that's your best bet for removing the virus at this late date, based on the problems you have.

And once you've restored the system back to the factory defaults, don't ever do anything else until you get anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed on that machine and do a complete system scan, just in case some remnant of it is stuck in the computer's BIOS or something. Also update your protection software often, and use it regularly.

i had a virus a few weeks ago that took me forever to get rid of then i just finally did a format C: and cleaned house..
i never had one that drove me to that..most you can tackle from safe mode but this one had so much infected already that it wasn't worth it..
if it's a virus just clean house..save what data you can and try to keep your bookmarks if you have years of them..

The Dell restore feature is both a blessing and a curse. It takes less time than using a Windows disc, but then the saved time is spent deleting all the DellWare that came with the machine.

Do you mean "it's serial ATA, the successor to IDE, which is supported by pretty much every free UNIX distribution out there" or do you mean "it's something Dell came up with"?

I can't believe that they would disable the ability to boot from CDROM. If they had they'd be in serious trouble faster than you could say "class action lawsuit".

Do you have a URL for this?

i never use anything but my own version of windows..
i never use all the crap that comes with dell or any other packed windows disc..
they put so much junk on there that i was better off with the virus lol

formate C: with a real version of your OS

Yeah I thought of that after the first time I did it ,but couldn't really justify the expense of a standalone copy of XP.

Yes, it's SATA




I don't have a URL specifically referring to this available at the moment, but I'll do some checking, there has to be something out there somewhere.

For the record it's a Dell XPS 400 I'm running, if that helps at all. I've gone through all the BIOS settings time and time again, no option whatever to boot from CD-ROM available. There is, however, a second SATA port free. What I've heard from Dell tech support, and outside sources too, is that if I wanted to install a SATA CD-ROM drive, or put in a SATA to IDE adapter on the second SATA port, then I can boot from a CD, but not from the included IDE drives.

ya it does cost..i have had this version of xp going on my 4th computer now..

i'm in the same boat about going to Vista ..right now it is still in the problem phase and i'm not wanting to spend that much on an OS when i have one that i like..

it's funny how much other Operating systems cost compared to windows..

i was going to switch to red hat back when it was around and it only cost 12.00 back then and really that was just paying for the book that came with it..the OS was actually free..

windows has always been way to priced i think..for as many holes that it has..

Thanks Yngwie Krogstad. Actually it is a fairly new computer, a little over a year old. (That is why I cry'd when I got the virus!) I will try everything that you guys suggested and if it does not change anything, back to saving up for a new one! Thank you all!!!!

Konu apologized for his mistaken sense of humor so i am deleting his quote

if it is not a hardware problem then you don't need a new computer..
right now i'm sure you could find a version of XP someplace for a good price and if it was the hard drive .those don't cost much at all..About the only time you really would have a virus affect your hardware is if it somehow made it to your bios chip and flashed it or something like that somehow..
most are only gonna mess with the software..

Will it boot from USB?

Edit: I'm seeing plenty of references to people booting that model from CD (Knoppix, Windows, UBCD, ...).

Edit: I'm seeing this: "The Dell bios will only boot from Dell OEM (original equipment manufacturer) operating system CDs. To boot from a non-Dell CD, you would have to boot from a floppy disk or a USB key, then access the non-Dell CD."

I am again reminded of something I told the other admin where I worked, just after we received a bunch of Dells she had ordered, "Never buy a computer whose name rhymes with Hell". She later asked me not to say "I told you so".

install a a floppy and find the make of the hard drive get a boot disc then install the drivers for the cdrom and install a dos then windows..sometimes you don't even need to use a dos..i didn't with xp..

Hmm.

My Dell XPS 420 has booted from a Ubuntu 8.10 CD that i burned, and it allowed me to install Ubu as my primary OS with Vista installed (installed from the Dell OS CD that came with my machine) 2nd and my machine boots up to a Ubuntu OS Choice screen and not the Windows OS choice screen.

In fact, Vista has no clue there is another OS installed.

Nikki, regarding the virus, I got hit with one a couple of weeks ago (for the first time ever), and it was so nasty it actually infected my Windows "safe mode" as well. The virus loaded even if legitimate services and drivers didn't!

It took us both working on my PC for about 9 hours to get it cleaned up and we're both computer professionals. There is no easy fix for some of these viruses today, I'm afraid.

Hmmm now it will not let me on safe mode. And pressing a button on the blue screen of death will not clear it either. I am just going to haft to save up for a new computer or re-build the hard drive and other important things.

OK I was nice and never made negative comments in the other thread but jeeeeeeeeeeez this gets under my skin. The helpless female crap just really grates. I work in a male environment and yet I know more about all of the systems and every damn bit of software we have in the office then all of the males combined. Network admin, build the computers, design with both Autocad and Tekla Xsteel, PLC and Ladder Logic troubleshooting and now 3 programming languages. On top of that I also troubleshoot electrical and hydraulic systems and traveled worldwide troubleshooting aluminum extrusion presses. All of this with a GED and all self taught. I never had the "looks" nor the "personality" but I would rather be plain looking then have to rely on someone else.

Listen not everybody may understand programming but what do you not understand about the following:

There is nothing wrong with the hardware on your computer. Hence it is stupid to buy another computer for which evidently you can not afford. If someone is in such desperate shape that they have to resort to begging money from strangers then the money is for food. Kind stupid to buy a computer, especially when it is not necessary.

There is no "re-building" the hard drive. You have access to a computer or you would not be here. Google is your friend and there are plenty of places that will tell you how to reinstall your operating system.

If you can not handle doing this then to hell with SL and the computer. Get your priorities straight and feed yourself and your family and use the rest of your limited funds for ... you know.... pay bills.

Let me set your mind at ease here. Except for some extremely rare exceptions, viruses cannot directly damage computer hardware, so there is no need for you to save up for a new computer (although, if that thing about not having the capability to boot from a CD is true, I'd consider a new, non-Dell just on principle alone).

Given the severity of your infection, and how long it's been going on, your best course of action is to just completely reformat the drive and start over (and hope that the recovery partition hasn't been compromised as well). I would not trust trying to recover any files on your current install, as any one of them could be compromised.

On the thought of Ubuntu: As I understand it, Ubuntu can be completely booted from a thumb drive. If so, then there's no reason the installation disk couldn't be dumped to a thumb drive and booted that way - that is, unless Dell has removed the capability to boot from external devices as well...

Ummmm no reformatting the C drive (and maybe your other drives depending on what you have going on) will get rid of a virus.

Really it is very simple and people have told you how to do it over and overagain in this thread.