Cannot Open ANY Programs/Control Panel Functions

I am having a very interesting, but also very frustrating problem, in Windows XP Pro, SP2 I believe.

A co-worker got a virus warning popup from AVG. I told her to "heal" it, which she did. At that point, several command prompt windows ran, very quickly, to the point that I couldn't tell what they were doing. The computer then rebooted.

Upon rebooting, my co-worker logged in and about half of the desktop icons showed the generic icon (white box instead of say... the IE logo), and the taskbar was solid blue with nothing on it. I had to do a hard reboot, and when I did, I tried to start it in safe mode. It loaded the .dll files, and then I got a BSoD equating to the hard drive failing. It will not boot into safe mode at all, always giving this BSoD.

I ran CHKDSK and it turned up nothing. I then selected the last known good configuration, which booted up fine. All of the desktop icons were normal, and the taskbar was fine.

Now when I try to open any program (Firefox, AVG) or any Control Panel Function, I get this message: "Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file." It also says something about the permissions.

I have checked the permissions, and everything looks fine. The only program that works is a freshly installed IE 8 that the IT director installed, however all searches are redirected.

I know that it has at least two different trojan viruses on it. Trend Micro's Housecall (it works since its browser-based) found about 6 different instances, but could not get rid of TROJ_DROPPER.PPN and TROJ_SMALL.

I have searched the internet high and low for a solution, and none seem to be working. I can't run any programs. I can't uninstall anything, as I can't use any control panel functions. I'm completely at a loss, and if it were up to me, I'd be formatting and re-installing at this point, however its not.

Is this just a perfect storm of hard drive failure and viruses? Or is a virus causing all of these problems?

 

Do a full scan with SuperAntiSpyware http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=5116 using the settings shown here http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=127217 when it's finished and you've cleaned anything that shows up, go to the Options (Control Centre) > Repair tab and select Repair Control Panel.

 

Thanks for the replies.

I went through the Read Me thing already, but as I expressed in my original post, I can't open/run any programs (except IE 8) or any Control Panel functions.

I'll post in the Malware section, I guess.

 

There is no section on safe mode, but at any rate, I can't boot into safe mode as I get a BSoD every time.

Thanks anyway. I'll wait for responses from the Malware forum.

 

Hmm, maybe a *.reg file is needed to undo some of the problems here before you are able to do any more actively. But that 'may' necessitate a reboot to activate the changes - which may well be undone by the infection(s) upon restart .

Time to post your old scan logs in the Malware forum. The experts there will come up with something.

 

My IT director and I came to the conclusion that with the time I've spent on it so far, as well as the time he's spent on it, and the possibility of us spending more time on it, that we're just going to get relevant data off of the hard drive and wipe it clean.

Between not being able to use any control panel functions, run any programs, or start in safe mode, we are both at a loss as to what to do next.

I appreciate the attempts at help, however!

 

I can't disagree with that decision

Good luck.