AntiVirus 2009 - Can't install Windows XP Recovery Console

Hi, I'm new to the forum though I've often come to read and learn as a visitor. In particular I read, followed and shared with friends your post on 'How to Protect Yourself from Malware'.
Happy that I've not found a scrap of malware since, I'm so embarrassed that last night I carelessly googled my way to a site that said I needed Antivirus 2009. Knew it was bogus and not to click any answer, but it wouldn't shut down in the usual way, just kept giving more warnings. Finally used CtrlAltDel and End Programs to shut down firefox. Went back to Google with no further problems, but I understand that although it doesn't show up on my program list or add/delete programs, I may have inadvertently downloaded it just by going there or backing out, so I came here just to check and be sure.
Following your instructions not to post until doing so, I've followed all the steps on your 'read & run me first - malware removal guide' including removing Online Armor (temporarily using XP Firewall junk along with my router) and am halfway through the 'Windows XP Cleaning Procedure' with a clean bill of health so far from SuperAntiSpyware, Spybot and MBAM. However I can't access the files for the Windows XP Recovery Console from my Toshiba Satellite P100 Recovery DVD-ROM, Windows XPHome Edition SP2 that came with my laptop as instructed in bleepingcomputers in their tutorial on using ComboFix.
Worked for since the wee hours on this. No sign of AV 2009, but ads popping up particularly on bleepingcomputer site.
What do I do now? Please be specific (and kind) as my knowledge is only fair to middling and I've had a sleepless night and day carefully going through all the procedures so far.
My apologies for the length of this, and thanks for your patience.

ladie

 

Success! Went back to bleepingcomputers.com and they had changed things to automatically download the recovery console. Maybe they read my post.

Now finished with all the required scans and am attaching 3 of the logs here with the others in the next post.

Hope someone can go through them and let me know if there are problems that the procedures done so far haven't eradicated.

Thanks in advance,
ladie

 

Here are the other two logs.

Thanks again,
ladie

 

Hi, Tim and many thanks for taking the time to go through the logs.

You say:

Your logs are clean....If you are not having any other malware problems, it is time to do our final steps:

I am having a problem but not certain if or how it is related, so thought I should check with you before continuing with the steps you've outlined.

Since I've run these tools, my laptop isn't holding its wireless internet connection. It comes on briefly when I reboot, but then goes off until I reboot again. Sometimes exiting and re-entering my browser is sufficient, but not always. I can only get on the desktop reliably.

Is this something that will go away when I go through these final steps or is it evidence of malware not detected by these scans or an unrelated issue?

Thanks for your help so far,
ladie

 

Thanks for the quick reply.

Just to be contrary, my laptop has stayed online for over 30 minutes now, and came out of hibernation and managed to reacquire the network address. The only thing I did was to unplug my internet connection and my router and then plug them in again, a suggestion I found online. On the chance (likelihood?) that it will not continue to work, I will try your suggestions if you think I should, though I'm not sure how to do either of them.

Have you tried uninstalling your wireless card in device manager and rebooting?

Will this reinstall just by rebooting or will I need to use the disk (Toshiba recovery dvd??) and reinstall?

As for settings on the router, can you tell me what to look for?

The other possibility that comes to mind is that I downloaded Uniblue Driver Scanner recommended on your site and it found that both my network adapters and 6 other system devices (2 of them Intel) are out of date. Only scan is free, but when I went to MS Update to try to update them there, it wouldn't allow me to do an update. I know that the last auto update seemed to hang up and not go thru but thought that was due to the malware or perhaps some of the stuff I was using to scan for it.

I'm out of my depth here.

Meanwhile I'm wondering if I should go ahead and do the final steps you outlined in your first message.

Sorry to be such a bother. I'm doggedly trying to learn how to do things for myself, but realize the only way is to have guidance and I greatly appreciate it.

ladie

 

Hi Tim,

Thanks for the info re the internet connection. I found the update site and will download them asap.

To finish off the malware process, I'm having trouble accessing combofix for step 2.

Following the directions in your message, I get the message
Windows cannot find 'Cocuments and Settings\OwnerDesktopcombofix'.
I copied and pasted the name so that much is correct.

I wonder if I installed it the way you wanted me to. I have a shortcut to combofix on the desktop and there is also a combofix.exe file in downloads in my documents. There is an empty folder in C:\ as well as a small 15 kb text file. What do you suggest?

Looking ahead in the directions, #4 is only for vista users, so with xp I skip that and do all the others. Is that correct?

Re the link on how to protect yourself from malware, I thought I'd followed all of those steps carefully and I update and scan with avira antivir daily as well as running spyware blaster and Spyware Dr, so I was especially shocked that I wasn't locked out of a dangerous site. Maybe the malware guys had updated after my last virus update at noon. Is there anything more I should be doing?

Thanks again,
ladie

 

I'm so new that I just found the button to post thanks. As well as the smileys.

Many of them!!

Two questions remain that aren't as urgent as the needs of those who are currently shut out by malware, but I hope you can answer when you have a moment:

1. Was my computer infected with malware?

Since there were no further procedures after running the scans, but realizing that one or the other of the things that were run could have isolated and deleted malware without my knowledge, I'm left wondering.

2. Re McAfee's Site Advisor

Will it play nicely with what I already have installed on my XPSP3 Toshiba laptop using a Firefox browser for most things:

Avira Antivirus
Online Armor
Spyware Dr.
Spyware Blaster

as well as these that only run on demand:

SuperAntiSpyware
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
Spybot Search & Destroy
Ad-Aware
CCleaner
Registry Mechanic

All of these are free versions, though I'm tempted to go to the paid version of Online Armor due to the fact that it updates automatically. It also has other features which until I try them I'm never sure I can make use of or if they'll just frustrate.

I assembled most of them some time ago when I read your sticky 'How to protect yourself from malware.' Don't know why I wasn't protected from my own stupidity and allowed into the AntiVirus 2009 site, but guess nothing's perfect. Or maybe there wasn't an infection, and I've just been overly cautious.

Again: Many, many thanks and keep up the good work.

Best regards,
ladie with a nice clean computer