screen problem

G

giddyup

My neighbor had little protection and got all sort of malware, trogans
etc. in her computer. I tried to find by using Lavasofts Adware, Spybot
search and destroy and Avast anti-virus which I installed on her
computer because she had no antivirus at all. Anyway, after hours of
finding hundred of crap through the 3 programs we still had the same
problem with the homepage hijacked and an exclamation mark in a yellow
triangle in the traybar by the clock. I finally told her I would take
the hard drive and scan the drive as a USB Drive and used Norton on my
computer to do so. I found eleven more and removed them also. Vundo
was one of them.
Now after placing the drive back into her computer it seems to work fine
except that the wallpaper only show about a quarter of the left side of
screen and the rest of the screen is white. I have never seen anything
like this before, any ideas?

Thanks

Windows XP home SP2
Internet Explorer 7
 
P

Pegasus \(MVP\)

giddyup said:
My neighbor had little protection and got all sort of malware, trogans
etc. in her computer. I tried to find by using Lavasofts Adware, Spybot
search and destroy and Avast anti-virus which I installed on her computer
because she had no antivirus at all. Anyway, after hours of finding
hundred of crap through the 3 programs we still had the same problem with
the homepage hijacked and an exclamation mark in a yellow triangle in the
traybar by the clock. I finally told her I would take the hard drive and
scan the drive as a USB Drive and used Norton on my computer to do so. I
found eleven more and removed them also. Vundo was one of them.
Now after placing the drive back into her computer it seems to work fine
except that the wallpaper only show about a quarter of the left side of
screen and the rest of the screen is white. I have never seen anything
like this before, any ideas?

Thanks

Windows XP home SP2
Internet Explorer 7

To me an infected computer is a compromised computer, especially
if it has been afflicted by so many viruses. I would have backed up
her files and formatted the disk straight away, and I still would. Just
because you spent so many hours trying to fix the machine does not
make it any better. It is still badly compromised. It's the same as with
a car that's been in a bad smash: No amount of panel beating will
turn it back into a good, reliable car.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

My neighbor had little protection and got all sort of malware, trogans
etc. in her computer. I tried to find by using Lavasofts Adware, Spybot
search and destroy and Avast anti-virus which I installed on her
computer because she had no antivirus at all. Anyway, after hours of
finding hundred of crap through the 3 programs we still had the same
problem with the homepage hijacked and an exclamation mark in a yellow
triangle in the traybar by the clock. I finally told her I would take
the hard drive and scan the drive as a USB Drive and used Norton on my
computer to do so. I found eleven more and removed them also. Vundo
was one of them.
Now after placing the drive back into her computer it seems to work fine
except that the wallpaper only show about a quarter of the left side of
screen and the rest of the screen is white. I have never seen anything
like this before, any ideas?


"Hundreds of crap"? Your chances of successfully cleaning a computer
that badly infected are next to zero. The only good solution is a
complete clean reinstallation of Windows.
 
G

giddyup

"Hundreds of crap"? Your chances of successfully cleaning a computer
that badly infected are next to zero. The only good solution is a
complete clean reinstallation of Windows.
Thanks, figured that was probably the case. Just trying to avoid the
inevitable.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

Thanks, figured that was probably the case. Just trying to avoid the
inevitable.


You're welcome. If it were me, I wouldn't even try cleaning it. Even
if the cleaning software told me everything was fine, I wouldn't
believe it. I think you just need to bite the bullet and reinstall
cleanly.
 

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