rootkit, pls help

hi all,

i think i have activated some kind of rootkit on my system, winXP sp3. i got a message that my mcafee antivirus realtime scanning had stopped. when i tried restarting it kept turning off. when i try to do a scan i get an error message. tried scanning with malwarebytes but this crashed at start of scan. a quick google search has led me to believe i have a rootkit and thus here. am currently doing the read me & run and will post logs asap.

i have a question meantime though, my system is dual boot WinXP sp3 and Win7 64. i was browsing the old xp before deleting it when i triggered the rootkit. Is it safe to run the win7 installation or could it also be compromised? the machine shares 2 external HD drives. as i intend to delete the xp installation is it safe (easier) to just reformat that partition and continue using win7?

thanks

 

Hi Tim,

thx for reply..

can i just clarify, is it best to:

1. reformat XP partition, run win7 then carry out cleaning on win7 partition

or

2. clean XP partition before running win7 / reformatting

 

ok, just wanted to check,

many thanks Tim,

will be back if anything shows up in Win7

regards..