I need a few good pre-Windows virus scanners

[Fraggable]

I'm working on a system for a friend of mine, it keeps giving blue screens and a 0x0000008E error message (I have yet to look that up but that's not the issue ATM).

I hooked his hard drive up to my system and scanned it with Avast (found 350+ unique trojans and viruses, over 500 infected files), Spybot, ad-aware, and the MS Defender (all updated). I put it back in his system, installed updated versions of all the mentioned programs, and found a few hundred more viruses, etc. I ran an Avast boot-up scan and found about 30 more, all removed successfuly, but on the next boot there were 100 more, 2 unremovable.

So I'm stuck. I need something more effective than Avast.

I know, you're wondering why I don't reinstall Windows, but I can't. he doesn't have the CDs and I seem to have lost my copy of XP Home.

Suggestions?

 

[xgsound]

When I get a machine that can't even boot to safe mode, the first thing I do is try a bootable cd with memtest (the least demanding test I can think of) to reassure myself that the machine works at all. After that trying other boot cds such as "Ultimate boot cd", "Ultimate windows boot cd", or "Knoppix".

It sounds like you're going to keep trying so here is a link to other free A/V (install one A/V at a time please) and malware programs http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=40&threadid=1674570&enterthread=y and a link to Flying Penguins http://theflyingpenguin.com/spyware-removal.shtml malware procedures.

If you get to the point that you can get to safe mode, I've often found "startup control panel" very helpful in preventing malware from completely starting up. Good luck.


Jim

 

[thescreensavers]

Antivir update and go to safe mode and scan

 

[OCedHrt]

Use BartPE. Add an anti-virus plugin, I'm not sure which ones it supports but there's gotta be atleast one. Then you can run the anti-virus from the CD directly.

 

[Fraggable]

Thanks for the suggestions so far, I'll try some of them when I get home today if I have time.

I can boot the system to normal mode with no issues, then about 120 seconds after logging in it gives the blue screen. I can boot to safe mode and run forever without having any problems, which leads me to believe it's some kind of driver or process that's infected.

I started memtest86 last night and this morning it had found no errors. That was 8.5 hours of runtime and it's still going.

Wow I just read that flyingpenguins site and that guy is really good. I'll go through that guide as soon as I can.

 

[MadAmos]

If this is XP and has the system restore feature on you need to turn it off and then rescan/clean from safe mode. When you are sure :thumbsup: you are clean of malware turn it back on and make a new restore point that is clean.

Amos

 

[Fraggable]

Originally posted by: MadAmos
If this is XP and has the system restore feature on you need to turn it off and then rescan/clean from safe mode. When you are sure :thumbsup: you are clean of malware turn it back on and make a new restore point that is clean.

Amos

Funny thing about that, I tried to turn it off and it said it couldn't. I figured it was some kind of malware keeping it from going off and that at some point my antivirus would clean it up and I could turn it off.

EDIT: also, I tracked down 2 registry keys that Spybot couldn't delete, and tried to delete them manually but it wouldn't do that either.