Norton AVG makes problem worse, can't login to Windows

[The111]

I stupidly got a virus (my own fault) from a P2P network called DC++ (fantastic program, btw). I recognized its presence immediately, as it created a folder called "msview" in my system32 directory full of bogus "keygens" and "cracks", and modified my DC++ settings so this was the only folder I was sharing. It also created a file called magnet.exe in my DC++ directory. I tried manually deleting all the bad files and registry entries I could find, but they kept coming back.

At this time, my entire O/S ran fine, only DC++ was affected.

On a friend's advice, I downloaded Norton AVG Free and ran it. It immediately detected a "PSW Banker" trojan horse and a "Tibick.E" worm. It automatically "healed" them and prompted me for a reboot. Upon reboot, XP did an interesting little dance where it logs me in for about 2 seconds, then logs me back out, then repeats the cycle infinitely. Reboot again, same results - stuck at the "login shuffle". Safe mode - same result.

At some point in all my reboots, my HDD became unrecognizable as a boot device, and then completely. I was toying with BIOS settings for some reason and honestly can't say if this was before or after the HDD recognition issues. I managed to get the hard drive recognized again, booted Windows to "last known settings that worked", got into Windows, and repeated the whole process again (healed virus with AVG, to infinite login/logout shuffle). This time, even if I choose "boot to last known working configuration", I still can't get into the O/S.

There is an AVG forum for support, but you can only get a login account from inside your AVG software. Great, I cannot USE my AVG software (or my O/S). And I'm on a work PC now where I do not have admin right and am sure I cannot install AVG. I really wish I could get this issue posted in their forums... I searched and it's not there.

Any ideas???

 

[SparkyJJO]

Norton and AVG are two separate programs, not the same. Symantec makes Norton, Grisoft makes AVG.

As far as the problem goes it sounds like the virus corrupted one of your system files and when AVG tries to heal the file it ends up making it worse (not AVG's fault, it is the virus's fault). If you know what file it was that had the virus you can try using windows recovery console to restore that file from the XP CD. Don't ask me how to do it though, I've never had to use recovery console.

 

[amdskip]

Edit.

Back your hard drive up and resinstall Windows. You risk messing another computer up by using it to back your files up so be careful. Make sure it has updated anti virus software on it already.

 

[bsobel]

As stated AVG and Norton are two different brands from two different companies, sounds like you downloaded AVG.

Format/reinstall

 

[John]

Your could try a repair installation

If that allows you to get into safe mode you can then click the link and my sig and spend a few hours cleaning up the garbage. Otherwise you should back up your data and do a clean install. If you don't have any data worth saving you're ahead of the game. However if there is important data that you need to save you can pull the hard drive, slave it, and then copy the important data off of on another computer. If this is too complex you could pay a local to do it for you.