[sehapanda]

I got another one of those surprise computer viruses (the ones that pose as antivirus software). I don't know what came over me, but I tried to stop it (I have fixed these before, but I didn't want to go through it again). I instantly deleted everything from Firefox just in case and shut my computer off. It started up, but the virus came back and more than half of my icons were missing. I shut my computer off, started it up in Safe Mode, and eventually found and deleted the infected files with AntiMalware. When I restarted my computer, it was really slow, and it took a while to connect to the internet. I decided to do a System Restore (with some difficulty getting it to start) and decided to choose this morning as a point. It put back SOME of the icons, but left more out, and it was even slower. Desperate, I then tried again, but picked a few days ago to when I did a Windows Update. This was the first time it was able to connect to the internet. More of my icons are back (they all show up for a split-second upon start up), and it seems to be faster, but now there are some problems with Dropbox and other random applications. I was sure the virus or my intervention was to blame, but I remember restarting my computer this morning and it didn't seem to want to connect to the internet either for a while. So now, I don't know what's worse. If this was caused by a nasty virus, or by some intense power-outage action my neighborhood suffered last night. Can anybody help with any of these problems?

I rebooted and checked my disk, but nothing came up. When it restarted again, it seems to boot up much faster. It gets progressively better each time I restart, but is that really a valid solution?

Also, I'm upgrading soon (new video card and new hard drive), so if I really have to reformat I will. I really have nothing to lose, since most of my documents are on an external drive and most of my games/programs are on Steam or could be backed up. The only thing I have a problem with is my anti-virus software, I'm on my last license of Avast . If I back it up, will it still work? I have the actual file left on my external drive...

Edited by sehapanda, 05 April 2011 - 05:12 PM.