I use a Dell XPS M140 notebook with Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition. I am currently typing from a different computer.
When I turned on my computer at about 3:00 PM today, I instatnly got a pop-up from Norton saying that a virus was found, and the file had to be deleted. Apon clicking OK, the same message popped up about 5 times before they all went away. Concerning my computer's saftey, I ran a full system scan on Norton Antivirus, and came up with nothing. In a matter of minutes, however, Mozilla Firefox windows began to rapidly pop up out of no where with random Ad sites. When I click out of them all, more appear in about one minute, including and annoying Ad in the middle of the screen that is animated, and freezes when you try to X out of it. At that point I turned off my computer, and ran a norton scan and a Lavasoft Ad-Aware scan in safe mode.
The ad-aware scan came up with hundreds of results, and when trying to quarenteen all of the files, a few were unable to be deleted because they were part of running processes. Once again, the norton scan came up with nothing.
So I tried getting rid of all of my processess, and repeatedly scanned with Ad-Aware in hopes to remove those few files. This all came to no avail. So for hours, I tried scanning and deleting, while constant pop ups invaded my screen, and norton messages claiming that a virus was found popping up just about every time I started the computer.
So, I then disconnected from the internet (I use a wireless connection with 2wire) and the ads stopped coming up (big suprise). I tried going to the Dell support site and was connected to about 5 different numbers, untill eventually I was asked to pay for a service that would give me insturctions on spyware removal. Thats when I decided to just come here.
I appologize for the long post, and I probably left a few details out that may help, but I am in a rush. Can anyone help me save my computer? It ran perfectly up untill 3:00 PM today, and I just want to get it back to where it was yesterday (and yes I tried a system restore, and that didnt work).
I thank anyone who has read up to this point.
Edited by dflo404, 24 April 2006 - 08:12 PM.