Q&A: Is my computer utterly, hopelessly screwed?

I have what I take upon yourself is a virus/trojan/malware that redirects my selected search results from major search engines to other Web sites, initially go.google.com but now various advertisement and porn sites.

My now installed antivirus and anti-spyware devices, Trend Micro OfficeScan and Ad-Aware, report no infections. All additional virus and spyware detectors I have used or downloaded have either detected nothing (Housecall, AVG, Avast!) or refused to bed in (SUPERAntiSpyware, Anti-Malware, Spybot, Kaspersky). I have had to download these devices from download.com because their primary distribution sites appear to be blocked by whatever I have. I am also unable to access technical help sites like bleepingcomputer.com and techguy.org.

I have attempted by system restore, but once I have chosen a date for the system to restore to it becomes unresponsive. It doesn't freeze, I can still press "back" or "cancel," but the "next" button is really unresponsive.

All of the above also occurs with my computer in safe mode. My default browser is Firefox.

The most computer-savvy person I know messed around on my computer for nearly three hours before declaring that he'd tried everything he could reckon of and had never seen anything like this before. The go.google.com virus/trojan/malware seems to be a common enough conundrum, but I have tried all of the solutions I have seen suggested and been foiled at each turn. If anyone else has any bright thoughts, I'd appreciate the help.

If I have no other option but to reformat my hard drive, what am I safe in transporting off? Could any Word documents, AVI files, images, or music I have produce reinfection later? Also, supposing I am forced to result to reinstalling Windows, am I safe by my current email, IM, and Web site passwords, or should I change them? Anything else I should be aware of?
We tried safe mode both with and without networking, to the same effect.

Answer by videoboy88
I’m a computer nerd for myself, and I’ve never heard of that. Your computer is dead, there is only one solution. You have to reload windows into the system. In the future, I would buy a program called “Goback” in which it returns to the exact point you specify. The way you reload windows is specific to your system.

Answer by zecul
That’s an fascinating malware infection if it’s able to attack in safe mode. Is that safe mode with networking? Safe mode only may offer a scanning solution as there’s no live internet tie allowed.

If formatting is the last solution then no you won’t be reinfected from the same file. Formatting cleanses the HDD completely of all files. If you want to be sure of that you could use a third party application, like Killdisk, to force an overwrite of all files prior to deletion. Once your files are gone, though, they’re gone. If at all possible make backups of your precious files like personal photos, documents etc. before doing the format. You may also want to make a CD of drivers, program installers, the latest service pack and whatever other necessaries to get you up and running quicker after the Windows installation.

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I have what I take upon yourself is a virus/trojan/malware that redirects my selected search results from major search engines to other Web sites, initially go.google.com but now various advertisement and porn sites.

My now installed antivirus and anti-spyware devices, Trend Micro OfficeScan and Ad-Aware, report no infections. All additional virus and spyware detectors I have used or downloaded have either detected nothing (Housecall, AVG, Avast!) or refused to bed in (SUPERAntiSpyware, Anti-Malware, Spybot, Kaspersky). I have had to download these devices from download.com because their primary distribution sites appear to be blocked by whatever I have. I am also unable to access technical help sites like bleepingcomputer.com and techguy.org.

I have attempted by system restore, but once I have chosen a date for the system to restore to it becomes unresponsive. It doesn't freeze, I can still press "back" or "cancel," but the "next" button is really unresponsive.

All of the above also occurs with my computer in safe mode. My default browser is Firefox.

My computer has grown increasingly sluggish since all of this first started.

The most computer-savvy person I know messed around on my computer for nearly three hours before declaring that he'd tried everything he could reckon of and had never seen anything like this before. The go.google.com virus/trojan/malware seems to be a common enough conundrum, but I have tried all of the solutions I have seen suggested and been foiled at each turn. If anyone else has any bright thoughts, I'd appreciate the help.

If I have no other option but to reformat my hard drive, what am I safe in transporting off? Could any Word documents, AVI files, images, or music I have produce reinfection later? Also, supposing I am forced to result to reinstalling Windows, am I safe by my current email, IM, and Web site passwords, or should I change them? Anything else I should be aware of?

Answer by Chris R
I had the very same happen to my computer about a month ago. I did a system recovery, which backed up all documents in the C-drive called “my backup” files. I then installed Bitdefender and scanned the computer – it found a virus & trojans in “my backup” files and deleted them. I also backed up some documents onto cd, but the recovery did it for me. All the trojans were found in windows system32 folders.

You could write all your documents onto cd & do a clean reinstall of your in commission system, or do the recovery. Just remember to scan each day for awhile if you choose recovery.

Excellent luck.

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