A Few Problems

Hey, I'm new to the community and have previously run just Spybot and Ad-Aware but have noticed my year old computer starting to get bogged down. I have gone through your suggested turorial page and am still noticing some problems.

I'd say these started becoming aparent in the last month, where I may have downloaded a corrupted song off of Limewire that I accidentally clicked "yes" to continue downloading (I'm just speculating). As for virus protection, I have a subscription to Norton.

My symptoms include:

-random restarts (more frequent lately, I'd say maybe 3-4 a week)
-when I start up windows the programs load much slower than they used too (often windows is just sitting still for 10-30 seconds without anything noticable happennig, as opposed to when it was brand new and it loaded super fast =])
-when I start up windows, I get a short error message saying Norton Anti-Virus cannot access drive C:
-when I open my folder containing my music, it takes between 5-30 seconds just to open, all other folders are near instant

Any help would be appreciated and I believe I checked to make sure I did what was asked of me before posting and if not my apologies; I'll get on it. I have Hijack This installed but have not generated a log file yet.

 

your computer may be restarting when it encounters errors... assuming you're on Windows XP or 2000, right click on My Computer, Properties Advanced Tab, and under Startup & Recovery, click on Settings, and then uncheck Automatically Restart under System Failure... assuming it's computer related errors causing the reboot, you should get a blue screen of death indicating exactly what error is causing the reboots (if that is the culprit)...

as far as possibly having a virus... you may want to consider using another anti-virus application... i used to have Norton, and when i switched to a free antivirus (Avast), it found 2 viruses and some other baddies that norton failed to pick up... but that's completely up to you, many people use norton and are content with it.... did you try any online scans such as Trendmicro's Housecall, or Panda's Active Scan? (you can google those names to find the websites for the scans)...

also, if you've completely gone through the READ ME in teh spyware forum, you should create a new post, describing your symptons as you have done here, and indicate that you have followed all the steps in the read me and tell them what types of things were found.... a mod should promptly respond to your thread and ask you to post your Hijack This log... they'll take it from there

 

Thanks for taking the time to offer some advice. I took your advice on the restart issue. I'd just like to clerify: I have to start a new post rather than posting what was found here? How specific does it have to be? I don't know if I can recall specifics of what all those programs found, but I think I remember:

-Wheater bug (disinfection failed - deleted)
-another infection (" ")
-deleting of many of the quarintined files in Norton

... Other than that I don't really remember, perhaps I can find logs somewhere if it is really important.

 

Yes, you have to start a new post in the Spyware Forum... You just need to describe the symptoms you are having (you can copy and paste from this post), and indicate all the steps you have taken, and if you were unable to run any of the indicated steps of the READ ME... after that post, they'll ask you for a Hijack This Log, and then assist you from there...

also, you might want to look into another antivirus application... or, try booting your computer isn't safe mode (tap F8 key during bootup), and from there, perform a full system scan with Norton (or whichever AV you decide to go with)... sometimes baddies have a tendency not to be removed during normal mode scanning...

but i'm no expert on malware removal so those guys over in the Spyware Forum will be able to help you best... hope you get your issues resolved promptly =]

 

Thanks a bunch =).