[eki]

I got a strange virus which de-activates some windows services (e.g. winsocks) and desables network connections. There is no way to activate them, I have tried a lot of different things. Avast, avira, norton do not find any threat, nor does spybot or hijack this. I found one other anti-virus, PrevX whcih tells me I have a rootkey malware that has found its way into my MBR. This basically means I am fucked... The stupid thing is that PrevX can delete it if I buy a licence and upgrade (which I did). But when I enter the licence key PrevX cannot activate the licence since it needs an internet connection for that. This is really stupid !!!

I found on the net that if I can boot through the CD/DVD of windows and launch the Windows Vista Recovery Console (or something like that) I can just fix my MBR with a command which would mean that I don't have to lose my data. But to top it up I was not given a windows recovery CD with my laptop. Instead the manufacturer gives a CD with the "factory image". It's good if you want to recover the factory settings but there is no Vista recovery console.

any of you guys have come accross this kind of viruses before? Any ideas?

[SParky]

Rootkey viruses are nasty nasty things
A repair of the MBR won't get rid of it

Unless you find a way to activate offline, I think you're gonna have to do a wipe of the hard drive and start again I'm afraid

[eki]

SParky, on 18 June 2009 - 10:46 AM, said:

Rootkey viruses are nasty nasty things
A repair of the MBR won't get rid of it

Unless you find a way to activate offline, I think you're gonna have to do a wipe of the hard drive and start again I'm afraid

I have used the recovery tool and it only wipes C drive. So basically all that was left on D drive is sill there. Hopefully not the virus. It seems OK now, although I was lucky to have a colleague o help me out downloading drivers and stuff...

I will have stuff to do tonight, but at least I am better off then yesterday.

This post has been edited by eki: 18 June 2009 - 12:40 PM