Antivirus tools have stopped working

peasley · Oct 4, 2009

I have a problem which has stopped antivirus software from running (SAS, Mbam, SpyBot). It started with McAfee saying that my system was not protected, unfortunately McAfee can’t fix it. When trying to run the av tools, Mbam stops after two seconds and disappears, Spybot does the same, and SAS stops after about 12 minutes scanning and disappears. When I try to run them again they all give the same message “Windows cannot access the specified device path etc. etc.”

I am running XP Home on the problem machine which is now disconnected from my network (this message is being sent from my laptop running Vista Business).
I uninstalled McAfee, together with the av tools. I then ran Combofix (yeah, I know) loaded Avira, which managed a complete scan and found a few Trojans which have been removed. I thought it had fixed the problem, but after reinstalling the av tools they still won’t work. I’ve even tried to run the executables from a USB drive.

Please can you help me get rid of whatever it is that’s stopping av tools from working?

chaslang · Oct 9, 2009

Welcome to Major Geeks!

Let's see if we can get some info so that we can determine which system file has been corrupted. That way we can try to replace it.

Download and save the below to your PC (save it anywhere you can find it. The Desktop is fine). Then doube click on it to run it.

AVPFind.bat

It should take a couple minutes to run. You will see a black command prompt window while it is running and it should close when it is finished. Once it finishes, attach the c:\avplog.txt file that is will hopefully create as long as the malware does not block the batch file from running.

Now download and Run exeHelper

Please download exeHelper to your desktop.

Double-click on exeHelper.com to run the fix.

A black window should pop up, press any key to close once the fix is completed.

Post the contents of log.txt (Will be created in the directory where you ran exeHelper.com)

Note: If the window shows a message that says "Error deleting file", please re-run the program before posting a log - and post the two logs together (they will both be in the one file).

Also please try running the below online scan:

http://www.superantispyware.com/onlinescan.html

Reboot immediately after scanning if it finds and removes anything. Let me know if anything was found. See if you can save a log with it.

Then try running these instructions: Using MGtools

Attach the below logs when finished with all of the above:

C:\avplog.txt - from AVPfind

a log from online SAS scan if you could make one

log.txt - from exeHelper

C:\MGlogs.zip - from MGtools

The C:\ assumes that drive C is you Windows boot drive. If you boot from another drive, then use the correct drive letter above.

peasley · Oct 11, 2009

Really grateful for your time in replying to my email. Since my last post (and before your reply) I went through your malware removal instructions very carefully to the letter and still had problems. I was so concerned about the state of my drive that I removed it and installed it in an external case and USB attached it to a different machine. mb and sas then found a number of things which I removed.

I decided to replace the drive with a larger SATA drive, which I've now done and I'm in the process of rebuilding it. Pretty dramatic I know, but the original drive was old and relatively small, so I guess it's for the best in the end.

Again, I'm very grateful for your reply but I'm hoping that once I get all the data off my old drive I'll reformat it and use it for backup. Thanks again and sorry for any inconvenience to you.

chaslang · Oct 15, 2009

You're welcome. Make sure that you work thru the below on your newly installed system:

How to Protect yourself from malware!

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Antivirus tools have stopped working

peasley Private E-2

chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member

peasley Private E-2

chaslang MajorGeeks Admin - Master Malware Expert Staff Member