Stuck! Cannot run scans, please advise!

Well, hello again, oh great Malware Removal wizards! :wave

I'm having issues with my in-law's computer and I need some serious advice in order to proceed! This could quite possibly be a hardware problem, but I'm leaning more towards malware and I have no idea how to troubleshoot from here to get to a position where I can run scans.

The computer is a custom built from a local shop, running XP and I believe SP3 (even though it doesn't have the RAM).

Last week my father-in-law (FIL) notified me that AVG was showing with an error state, saying that the email scanner was not functioning. I made sure they had their updates, did a reboot, etc. Email scanner was still not functioning. This is AVG 8 and I've had plenty of problems with that damn program being buggy, so I kind of shrugged it off as a bug. I told them to let me know if it cleared up in a few days, watch their scans, be careful checking their email, etc.

Today, I get a call from my FIL saying that the computer is not booting! Over the phone, I was able to gather that the machine would boot almost to the desktop, then would show and error screen, something along the lines of "we're sorry, a recent hardware or software change has caused a problem" (please let me know if you need that exact message!)...

...there have been no hardware or software changes. I asked him to try booting in safe mode, safe mode with networking and even "last known good config.", with absolutely no success. It keeps coming back around to the boot choice screen.

So, that's where I'm at. I sincerely apologize for having no scans/logs, but at this point I can't even get anything to run - believe me, I'd love to run the scans if I could!

I'm desperately seeking advice on what I should do next to try and save this machine!!! Let me know if there is any other information I can give you to help...

THANKS!

 

Thanks for the advice Corporal Punishment.

That's what I expected to hear, just thought I should check with the experts first.

Guessing I'll be back with more ?s later, but thank you again for now!

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

 

I wanted to let everyone know that the machine was deemed a lost cause and I proceeded to remove the hard drive so I could recover my in-law's files...

...well, I believe I found out what was causing the problem. In their "My Documents", I found an instance of "Incredimail Installer" that was marked from December 17 (THE day this system started getting wacky). Interesting to note as well, when I copied this file over to my hard drive (along with all of the other files in the my docs) the file decided to copy itself - TWICE. I'm no expert but that cannot be a good sign.

They've been deleted and I've been all over the web reading about this "Incredimail" thing. Apparently its full of spyware/adware. Some love it, other hate it. I think it is what crashed this system.

 

Ha!

Ya, well it's too late to find out what caused it now. I've transferred all their important stuff to my old desktop for them until they get a NEEDED replacement (this puter in question was almost a decade old).

Thank you Chaslang and Corporal Punishment for your time and advice! Til next time!

PS: Tell TimW that I still would LOVE to send him a t-shirt (of course, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't send one to Chas and CP as well)