Never had one this nasty!!

A friend gave me his Dell laptop to try and repair. His McAffee died a week ago and somehow he picked up a virus (duh!). McAffee goes nuts saying it's infected but will not remove the virus. Any program that starts sets off the warning that it is infected. The taskbar fills with warnings. In safe mode nothing will run. You do not get a warning but a program will start and then shut down. I can't scan, get internet access, look at files or run a cd/dvd. I'm still trying to see what the infection is. I'd say it's time for a format and reinstall. Wish I knew what it was.

Barman58 said:

Sometimes it is better to bite the bullet and perform a full wipe and re-install

Assuming that you have valid data backups the time taken for a re-install will be a lot less than any attempt to clean the machine, (which will never be guaranteed to be totally clear).

There are a number of bootable virus disks available that you may want to give a try before going through a re-install

Have a look Here ...

Downloadable Computer Repair CDs | Technibble

If you have the time running a few of these may solve he issue

I don't think that will help. This thing shuts down any program you start in safe mode including "My Computer". In normal operating mode it goes nuts. I think you're right, time to bite the bullet...........or use it! It amazes me how in one week after the AV quit he got nailed!!!!!

its best to do a clean install.

but what u can try doing is running rkill found here Rkill – Repair Tool of the Week | Technibble

rkill, "kills" or stops the process the virus is running so u can open up an anti virus to run and remove the problem. after using rkill try to install malware byes anti malware and avast.avast also comes with a boot time scan. u may need to restart the pc in which u will have to run rkill again. rkill only takes 10 seconds or less u see a black command prompt screen and it automatically will shut down any malware processes

Advast for one, and I'm sure other do to, make a cd / dvd that you can run. My Advast copy lets me add virus definations via floppy disk ( Yes I still have one.)

+1 for the clean install

Krispy1 said:

but what u can try doing is running rkill found . . .

FYI, the only site with an up-to-date version of RKill is Bleeping Computer. See this article by Lawrence Abrams/Grinler, the developer of RKill: RKill - What it does and What it Doesn't - A brief introduction to the program

Corrine said:

+1 for the clean install

Krispy1 said:

but what u can try doing is running rkill found . . .

FYI, the only site with an up-to-date version of RKill is Bleeping Computer. See this article by Lawrence Abrams/Grinler, the developer of RKill: RKill - What it does and What it Doesn't - A brief introduction to the program

the site i posted mirrors are the ones from bleeping computer which are always being updated and that site is directly approved by Lawrence