Rebooting Cycle

Hi Major Geeks -

I have been in the Malware forum but after running into this problem that I'm bringing here, Kestrel13 requested that I move to the Software forum to get help.

Here's is the last message I posted to the Malware forum.

 

I read your Malware thread and have a question. Why did you think that you had Malware on the computer? Have you or anyone else recently installed any new software or hardware on this computer other than the Malware removal apps that wouldn't run?

Noticed that you had to do several repair installations to get the computer to boot. How many times would it successfully boot after the repair before going into the reboot cycle? Do you have the data on the hard drive backed up?

Even though these questions may seem meaningless, answers would be helpful before giving any advice.

 

Hey Novice,

Thanks for the reply. I have to be honest with you... I can't even give you a definition of Malware. I don't really know exactly what it is. I do know that this computer is sick It does have a Rogue Antivirus... I believe that its just called Antivirus 2010. I have a good amount of experience with cleaning computers, but that experience doesn't go beyond me reading forums and getting everything I know from smarter people like those of you on Major Geeks.

I was asked to look at this computer a couple of nights ago. When I got, it was in the reboot cycle. The only thing I could do to actually get it to fully boot was to do the Windows repair. Once I got it booted... I immediatlely noticed the Antivirus 2010. I knew this is a Rogue Antivirus. I have not installed anything on the computer except the tools suggested on the Windows Cleaning thread on the Malware forum. As I mentioned the computer didn't allow me to make it very far in the cleaning process.

Here is a sequence of things that happened.
- Had browser opened. Popup came up saying I was infected and a virus scan just started going.. I know this is probably from the Rogue Antivirus.
- Also, I'm unable to open many websites... ex: Malwarebytes.. MANY others included.
- Running any of the cleaning tools... they are shut down shortly after starting.
- After attempting to run Combofix... the system went back into the rebooting cycle

Please let me know if there is any specfic information I can provide to help us. Thank you again for your help!

 

You're more than welcome for what little help that I may provide! The questions that I asked were to determine whether your hard drive was dying or not. It doesn't appear to be the hard drive. You didn't answer the question of whether the data on the hard drive was backed up or not, so I'll assume no.

Hopefully you have a Windows installation CD ( not a recovery CD sometimes provided by major OEMs ) but this may work from either as you will be using files on the CD. Please read and follow this,

http://www.ehow.com/how_5004158_fix-windows-xp-reboot-loop.html. Immediately after this boot into safe mode with the internet connection unplugged and run the applications that you downloaded in the Malware Removal forum. This should allow you to make some progress in the removal of the Malware.

 

Hey Novice -
:cry:cry

I followed all instructions completely and this dang this is still rebooting itself!!
And you are correct... data isnt backed up. I know that as a last resort I can restore it. I'd really like to get around that though. Sorry, I wish I could tell you it worked flawlessly.

 

Any way you can boot to a live Linux distro? From that environment, you should be able to salvage some saved data, and you may be able to disable the rogue enough to be able to get into safe mode and run some cleaners.

 

I'm all for it... but I would need instructions in doing so... If you can provide the instructions, I'm willing to try it.

 

I'd keep following the procedures being offered by Novice (and any others that jump on board), but meanwhile: do you have any imaging software available that can burn an .iso?

 

Sure thing.

 

Good. I'm a big fan of Mint - seems to be easier for Windows users. That page contains the user guide and d/l links - any questions, we can help.

 

Thank you very much, I'll take a look at it!

 

Linux Mint was pretty cool.
I appreciate the help but I have to unfortunately give up on this one I hate that. I'm gonna reformat it b/c every single time I seem to make good headway... I'll eventually run into the reboot cycle!!! Its so obnoxious!!! So I think I've spent enough time on this. Thanks for your help.

 

Sorry to hear that, lweigler. To clarify: the machine goes through the cycle even if you boot from a linux disk?

 

No it doesn't. And I can save files from there. That's helpful. I actually haven't given up yet. Here's what I've noticed. Everytime it goes into the cycle the ONLY way I have managed to get it stable again is to repair install the OS. It's annoying bc it takes 30 min everytime BUT, everytime I get back in I get a little bit further in the cleaning process. I have managed to completely run malwarebytes, and it's clean. I ran the est online scan suggested, and it's clean now too. I can run mgtools as well. I haven't reposted bc I don't want to bother you guys with the whole making progress and now, oh wait it's rebooting again thing. I know it may sound like hardware but I'm sure it's not. The computer never did this until it got infected! If someone had the patience to deal with this, I'm positive we could fix it. I'm not giving uo yet haha. Shoul I reposted any logs I can get? Thanks for the follow up, I really appreciate it! Sorry for he big paragraph. I'm on my iPhone.

 

The one thing that I still can't get to run is SuperAntiSpyware. Everytime that run it, it makes it about 10 seconds and then something shuts it down .

 

By all means repost in the same thread in Malware Removal and attach the logs that you have. I'm curious as to what is causing your problem.