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ArcticMyst Security by Avery

Help! I have a virus

Joined
Nov 5, 2007
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I have this god awful virus that I cannot get rid of. It is pretending to be "windows security alert" There is a small circular red icon in my taskbar with a white X in the center. It keeps giving me notifications like "Hard drive not found, missing hard drive" and "Critical error. Ram usage is too high" then "damaged hard drive clusters, personal data is at risk" It is also causing a window to pop up sometimes and if I "x" out of it another will appear and if I "x" out of that the computer shuts down. It also deleted all restore points up until the moment I contracted it. HELP.
 





Joined
Jun 19, 2009
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Try booting into safe mode with networking, so you can access the web, and work with some anti virus through that. I used Malware Bytes and it got rid of a virus worse than yours. Hope it helps. :beer:
 

udanis

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I use avg on my window's pc. It's free give that a shot. For me it works well.

I also use zone alarm as my firewall.
 

ped

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safemode > malwarebytes > end of problem
 
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Thanks guys. I figured out a way around it. I switched to guest user on my computer then added another user "yobresal 2" set it as administrator, deleted the old administrator with the virus and problem was solved. I've been trying to get rid of it for 12 hours and right after I post this thread I figured it out.
 

wbp

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Glad you found a way to get rid of it, although I suspect it might still be lurking.
Take the time now while you can to download and run MalwareBytes. As other's have posted, it works, and it's free (although you can and should contribute).

If you (or anyone else here) get stuck and need some help, and you can still get it on the net, I can often help with remote support (as time permits).

William
 
Joined
May 15, 2010
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it will still be there, sounds like a worm virus. It will attach it'self to another file and re-appear at a later date. Best bet is to re-install and make a back up disk when you have all your apps installed, that way you just format your HDD and use the boot disk and all your apps will boot up with the O/S. Also partition your HDD and save all your work on the other drive (not the C Drive)
 
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Aug 24, 2010
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I got a virus on my computer 2 years ago and it wiped out everything on my HD and on backup HD. I thought that I had the virus deleted and was using PC Cilin at the time.

Now I have an external HD when I want to save a file or files I plug it in and save my files and then unplug it when I am done. I now have Norton and it also saves backup on my external HD.
 
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Apr 28, 2009
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Here is another method that I have used in the past. Although I'm not currently doing it. Dual boot your computer windows/linux and then if you get a virus on one side, you move your important files to the other operating system and then wipe the offending one and reinstall. Then move the files back again.
 

TTerbo

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If you can get it, mcafee and barracuda are also amazing anti-virus systems in case something like this ever comes up again.

Mcafee is crap, I was on laserchat for hours talking to things and some other peole trying to fix a virus, Mcafee decides to shutdown sometimes and it wont work if you have that windows virus turned on....its lame
 
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May 31, 2009
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Take it from me.... best software ever invented....

safemode ---> smitfraud fix it ----> reboot ----> done!
 
Joined
May 17, 2007
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It's adware, not a virus, and as others have said, Malwarebytes will fix it.
 
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I used malawarebytes. It found 6 items. They were found in precarious places like system restore files and such. Dirty little files are gone now though. Thanks guys.
 

wbp

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Excellent! Malwarebytes has always done the trick for me.
 
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I would recommend getting C-cleaner also. It's free & very effective with problems like you've explained
 




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