Bug or System problem? Need to Restore Without losing Files

[Guest]

Hi,

Is there any way to restore my system back without losing all my files?

This is going to sound like a problem for my antivirus software provider
but, it’s not.

2-days ago (3/5), I tried to run my Norton System Works software and noticed
all but one of my shortcuts to it and the utilities associated with it were
gone. When I found the last shortcut and triggered it, I received an error
stating, “Necessary files for running were missing-Uninstall and Reinstallâ€.
I id this twice but, the same thing occurred. Again, I could run some of the
software from the cd itself but not all. The screen would just blip.

I then found in the control panel under administrative tools/services, that
all Symantec software was disabled. I enabled and started everything
however, the antius piece f the software did not work stating the
navapsvc.dll files were missing.(They weren’t).
When I would re-boot, These setting would all return back the way they were.


When I try to contact Symantec via the web I couldn’t access any of their
sites. It would always say server was not available. or I was thrown to a
odd browser “starwareâ€, that said there was not such url…and proceeded to
give me other listings for Symantec including the one I entered.

I now tried uninstalling as much old software that as I could, including
software that I thought was safe to install from CD I purchased, (Nero-6-with
upgrades that I pulled down from the web) and Upgrades from RealPlayer. That
didn’tt work either.

I then went to Gateway-Restore Points. I had many restore points (dates)
that went back as far as 2/15, which should have done the trick. However,
they all failed. The only error I would receive is that it failed.

Something is preventing me from purging whatever it was that was downloaded.
Again, is there any way to restore my system back without losing all my
music, .doc .xls, photo files?? I have 36 gb to back-up all this stuff.

Any help would be greatly appreciated
Greg Bobak
(e-mail address removed)

 

[JerryMouse]

Hi,

Is there any way to restore my system back without losing all my
files?

This is going to sound like a problem for my antivirus software
provider but, it's not.

2-days ago (3/5), I tried to run my Norton System Works software and
noticed all but one of my shortcuts to it and the utilities
associated with it were gone. When I found the last shortcut and
triggered it, I received an error stating, "Necessary files for
running were missing-Uninstall and Reinstall". I id this twice but,
the same thing occurred. Again, I could run some of the software
from the cd itself but not all. The screen would just blip.

I then found in the control panel under administrative
tools/services, that all Symantec software was disabled. I enabled
and started everything however, the antius piece f the software did
not work stating the navapsvc.dll files were missing.(They weren't).
When I would re-boot, These setting would all return back the way
they were.


When I try to contact Symantec via the web I couldn't access any of
their sites. It would always say server was not available. or I was
thrown to a odd browser "starware", that said there was not such
url.and proceeded to give me other listings for Symantec including
the one I entered.

I now tried uninstalling as much old software that as I could,
including software that I thought was safe to install from CD I
purchased, (Nero-6-with upgrades that I pulled down from the web) and
Upgrades from RealPlayer. That didn'tt work either.

I then went to Gateway-Restore Points. I had many restore points
(dates) that went back as far as 2/15, which should have done the
trick. However, they all failed. The only error I would receive is
that it failed.

Something is preventing me from purging whatever it was that was
downloaded. Again, is there any way to restore my system back
without losing all my music, .doc .xls, photo files?? I have 36 gb
to back-up all this stuff.

You've got very intelligent malware that's taken over your computer. It has
disabled your virus checker so the malware can't be found, intercepts your
attempts to access anti-maleware sites, and reconstitutes itself if any of
its parts are tampered with.

Now that its found a host, it's probably just sitting there, doing its
thing: sending spam by the millions, propagating to other computers.
Breeding.

Your symptom is neither a "Bug" nor a "System problem."

 

[Guest]

What can I do?

You've got very intelligent malware that's taken over your computer. It has
disabled your virus checker so the malware can't be found, intercepts your
attempts to access anti-maleware sites, and reconstitutes itself if any of
its parts are tampered with.

Now that its found a host, it's probably just sitting there, doing its
thing: sending spam by the millions, propagating to other computers.
Breeding.

Your symptom is neither a "Bug" nor a "System problem."

 

[Malke]

What can I do?

I do believe your best course of action would be to take the machine to
a good local professional, not a BestBuy or CompUSA type of store. I'm
not saying this to hurt your feelings, but am being practical. If you
want to try fixing the problem yourself (not recommended), you can
start by rescuing the data you neglected to back up. There are a few
ways of doing this on a non-responsive system.

An easy way to retrieve Windows files is to boot with Knoppix, a Linux
distro on a live cd. You will need a computer with two cd drives, one
of which is a cd/dvd-rw. To get Knoppix, you need a computer with a
fast Internet connection and third-party burning software. Download the
Knoppix .iso from www.knoppix.net and create your bootable cd. Then
boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows files. Use the K3b
burning program to burn the files to cd/dvd-r's. Since you have such a
large amount of data to backup, I hope you have a DVD burner.

If this isn't something you can do, you can slave the hard drive in
another system with a working Windows installation, but there is a good
chance your infected drive will infect the healthy system so I really
don't recommend this in your case.

After the data is retrieved, you can start cleaning. Don't forget to
thoroughly scan the data before you copy it to a clean machine!

Start by using TrendMicro's Sysclean:
TrendMicro's Sysclean is an extensive antivirus tool which has the
advantage of not needing to be installed. It requires two parts - the
scanning engine and the virus pattern files.

1. Create a new folder on your Desktop or the C: drive named something
useful like "Sysclean".
2. Go here and download the two parts of the program to that folder:

http://www.trendmicro.com/download/dcs.asp - Sysclean
http://www.trendmicro.com/download/pattern.asp - virus pattern files

The pattern files will be zipped - extract them with your unzipper (like
WinZip) or if you have XP, you can just open the folder. You need to
put the extracted files in the Sysclean folder you made.

3. Restart your computer in Safe Mode. Get into Safe Mode by repeatedly
tapping the F8 key as the computer is starting up to get to the proper
menu.
4. Go to the Sysclean folder you made and double-click on sysclean.com.
Start the scan. After the scan is finished, look at the log. You may
need to make a note of where any viruses were found if they were not
able to be removed so you can manually delete them.

Then see if you can get NAV working, update it, and do a complete scan
in Safe Mode. Check your hosts file to make sure it hasn't been
compromised to prevent you from getting to Symantec's download site.

Malke

 

[NobodyMan]

What can I do?

1. Get a friend to download a new virus program/spyware program from
the net, place it on a CD and then you can try to install/run it.

2. Delete your current installation, reformat, and reinstall windows
from scratch. Practice better safe computing. Learn the importance
of backing up your important data so you can restore it after a huge
loss like this.

 

[Guest]

Thank you all. I appreciated the feedback. I usually do practice good
computing, backups, safe scan of dowloads etc. With 2 recent deathe sin my
family, everything kinda got placed on hold. agai, I appreciate all your
help. At least I can now move forwrd.