[Terry Mullins]

I was advised to run Combofix on my Acer Aspire 4330 computer that has Vista basic installed on it.
After the initial scan was complete (the initial 50), I saw a message that said that combofix would have to scan deeper into my computer. Shortly after-wards, the computer rebooted and I have since had a black screen with several popup's that have appeared over time.

The pop up screens are all text, no html, I have not responded in any way to any of these.

I have been tempted to reboot the computer, but I remember reading somewhere along the way that I should not initialize a reboot myself.

Every once in awhile I will also hear some kind of random advertising over the speakers, and the wifi & hard drive lights continue to blink, so I know that something is going on.

I started this process over 15 hours ago and I am still patiently waiting.

What should I do at this point ?

[Advertisements]

DO NOT use any TOOLS such as Combofix, Vundofix, or HijackThis fixes without supervision.

Doing so could make your pc inoperatible and could require a full reinstall of your OS, losing all your programs and data.

I don't know who told you to run CF on you're own.

Why we don't ask you to run ComboFix from the onset

As stated by the author of ComboFix:

ComboFix is a very powerful tool which when improperly used may render your machine to a doorstop.

We first need to verify if there's any rootkits present and how they could affect our tools. DDS & GMER are preliminary scans. We use their logs to map our strategy for attack.

With these logs we can determine the infections present & decide whether to deploy ComboFix.

At this point your only option is to reboot and hope it comes back up.

[ldtate]

DO NOT use any TOOLS such as Combofix, Vundofix, or HijackThis fixes without supervision.

Doing so could make your pc inoperatible and could require a full reinstall of your OS, losing all your programs and data.

I don't know who told you to run CF on you're own.

Why we don't ask you to run ComboFix from the onset

As stated by the author of ComboFix:

ComboFix is a very powerful tool which when improperly used may render your machine to a doorstop.

We first need to verify if there's any rootkits present and how they could affect our tools. DDS & GMER are preliminary scans. We use their logs to map our strategy for attack.

With these logs we can determine the infections present & decide whether to deploy ComboFix.

At this point your only option is to reboot and hope it comes back up.

[Terry Mullins]

Actually, it was a anti-virus company that advised me to run combofix. I did not run it on my own, they walked me through the process until I got to the first reboot. I would call them, however, tech support is not open today & I can not talk with them until Monday afternoon.

[ldtate]

It's your call as what you want to do.

Did they have you install the Windows Recovery Console?
What OS are you using? Is it 32 or 64 bit?
Do you have your Windows OS CD?

[Terry Mullins]

The install went right past the recovery console.
I am running vista basic 32 bit

When I first purchased this computer, I thought I made a recovery dvd. As it turns out, I used a dvd -rw and when I put these dvd's into the drive, it comes up blank.

I can purchase the recovery cd / dvd's from acer for $19.99 + shipping

[ldtate]

Will it boot to the desktop?

[Terry Mullins]

As of now, I have not even tried to reboot the computer because of the instructions that combofix would reboot several times on it's own and not to initiate a reboot manually. I have run combofix on other computers and it did not take anywhere near this long to complete.

[ldtate]

If it's been running for 15 hrs it isn't going to work.

[Terry Mullins]

If it's been running for 15 hrs it isn't going to work.

This is what I was thinking, however, the hard drive & wifi lights continue to blink & about once every 45 minutes or so I hear various 'advertising ?' over the speakers.

[ldtate]

IMO, you're wasting your time.

[Terry Mullins]

In your opinion, what course of action should I take ?


On a side note, (( just thinking to myself )) Crazy enough, I have another restore cd that is from gateway. Isn't gateway & acer the same company ?

[ldtate]

IF it were my computer, I'd power it off and reboot.
If it doesn't reboot in Normal Mode, I'd try Safe Mode, then Last Known

[Terry Mullins]

I will give that a try & see what happens from there. Thanks for your help & I will report the results on this thread regardless of the results.

[ldtate]

[Terry Mullins]

I restarted the computer and it booted up after it went through the boot repair.
I backed up everything that I needed from the computer and attempted to recover from the hidden section of the hard drive by pressing alt-10 on boot.

At the beginning & end of the recovery process I received an error message:
RY Tools NAPP6.exe
Failed to create physical HD0 reason 32

So, after everything I guess that I am back at square 1. Just placed an order for a recovery cd from acer.