Screwed Up By the Numbers....

[rpjkw]

Yesterday morning I accidentally clicked a link on an obvious phishing email. I meant to send it to the spam folder, but.....

Anyway, it appears to be on the HDD because I get frequent blue screens showing chkdsk closing down to "protect my computer". The error numbers, or whatever they are, disappear too quickly to catch and write down. I'm unable to boot into safe mode or chkdsk at startup and unable to run chkdsk from windows using the command prompt.

Short of a reformat, is there anything I can do to eliminate someone's idea of a joke? Antivirus and malware/spyware scans haven't done the job.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Hangin' is too good for the ##@!^& that uploaded that #&^#* file.

Bob

[Crusader]

Sorry to here about this Bob . If you have already tried the freeware "Malwarebytes" forgive the repeat . If you have not , give it a try :

http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

I'm not sure if it would even cover this type of problem but I know it has pulled me out of a few situations that Microsoft Security Essentials did not .

Hopefully someone with more knowledge that I can jump in here and get you straightened out without having to reformat .

Rich

[rpjkw]

Hi Rich, I did rum Malwarebytes; that's also when I discovered I couldn't boot to safe mode.

The BSOD has popped up enough that I was able to write down numbers. It shows: nv4_disp.dll and when I googled it, it seems to be my nVidia drivers. I'm wondering if I can run Driver Cleaner Pro to delete the drivers then perhaps, relying on XP drivers?, run chkdsk and as a final act re-install nVidia drivers.

I'm assuming that I can still have some kind of video after deleting nVidia's drivers, but I don't know. The last bug I got was the NYB Virus 18 years ago.

Bob

[rpjkw]

OK, I think, think, I got solved the problem. I found a program to eliminate the BSOD nv_disp.dll problem. Even though it also loaded one of those programs that tell you that there are 20 million errors on your pc that, for only $29.95, can be eliminated, it did appear to work. I was alble to run chkdsk and I haven't had any BSOD's for the last 30 minutes. Getting rid of the file and crapware was easy, so I guess I'm in business again. I haven't tried to boot into Safe Mode yet, but I hope that works as it's supposed to.

It seems the BSOD nv_disp.dll is quite common and has been around for at least 10 years. Google is truly my friend.

Bob

[Cthulhu]

Take a look at "ComboFix" it is freeware and very good at eliminating the nastiest of bugs.

[rpjkw]

Thank you, I will. Please disregard my previous post: I had ANOTHER BSOD so I'm back to square one.

Checking out combofix now.

Bob

[cheezyflier]

that's why it's important to know your running processes.

if you can bot into safemode w/networking do that. open your browser and go to
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

download and run it. when it fids the bug, delete it. reboot to normal mode, then go to your ccleaner
(you ARE using ccleaner, right?) run the registry fixer two times. make sure to read through the list in case it picks up something it shouldn't. if the list is good, click "fix everything" then run a normal virus scan and reboot. you should be a-ok after that.

in the future:

QUIT USING INTERNET ExPLORER, AND FIREFART WITH EXPLORER EMULATORS
know your processes. if something seems funny, bring up your task manager and have a look.
disable explorer by pointing it to a non existent port, and asign a fictitious i/p address to it. that way it can run in the background doing nasty stuff. warning, this will mess with some programs that use explorer to update, and it also kills google earth. i ain't figured that part out yet. but it stops about 80% of all malware cold right there. you can also stop using outlook for you email. open all your mail online from the isp's server. that way, they stop any bugs for you, before you ever download them.

[rpjkw]

Well, I solved the recurring BSODs, but not the underlying problem. Using Driver Cleaner Pro I uninstalled my nVidia drivers as well as the control panel. Then I installed earlier drivers, 275.33, and that stopped all the BSODs. Now I have to figure out a way to eliminate the "buggy" I picked up on Wednesday. It appears the bug alters the nv4_disp.dll on the current video driver, that is the one installed at time of infection. The nv4_disp.dll on the older driver doesn't seem to be affected.

Thus far, CCleaner as well as several malware/spyware programs plus virus programs, including ComboFix, have not touched the bug. So, I'll keep trying. At least for the moment I'm not contemplating reformatting my HDD.

Bob

[aeromed202]

I didn't see this one listed as one you tried. Try FSecure and download the online scanner. It has found a resistant bug or two for me in the past, one reason being the scanner downloads fresh from their site and starts right away but it can take an hour or more to run. Another is AVGs PC Tune up. You get one free scan and I think all found bugs get fixed free once, which is a step above the rest that usually fix a portion of what is found unless you pay up. Then you subscribe for all subsequent scans like the other products. It found a gob of things on mine and I am probably going to get a years subscription because I think AVG is pretty sound. Also if you're running XP, create another administrator account as a backup. I once got rid of one nasty problem by deleting the account that had it so at least I didn't have to reformat anything and simply switched to the clean account to rebuild. Lastly, if it doesn't slow things down too much you might try running real time anti-virus softwares concurrently, I run MS Security Essentials, AVG and AdAware. I've been hit too often running MSE alone (go figure) but knock on a diode, running all those together I've been very fortunate for a long time now and get pop ups from both now and again saying something was caught and dealt with. My last hit was pretty much my doing because I went to a site for work research that I thought might be a problem, and it was.

Oh yeah. Like Cheezy said once you get the PC well again, take screenshots of things like 'running processes' and "services' and the folder directory tree and anything else to make a snapshot of when things are as they should be, then print them out and hang onto them. Way cheaper than imaging, albeit with some drawbacks, but it helps.