Trojan?

Ok my roomate was playing a prank on his friend, and got on his friends laptop, and downloaded a whole bunch of porn through limewire...

Now when he tries to power on the machine it goes through the first screen( has the manufacturers logo, and the option to boot to bios etc...) then before it boots the os (windows 32) a quick blue screen with code flashes, not long enough for you to read it or press the pause button to stop the screen, and then reboots all over again...

I dont know if this is a Trojan or virus or whatever it is, but I have figured out that it is not something hardware related because I have a knoppix std live disc that i put in... and it ran that fine, even the fan (which i thought could be the issue) would turn on!

Could anyone tell me what this is, and how to fix it?

Can it boot to safe mode? I have seen this before and it is usually something hosed up the video drivers or settings.

That quick blue screen you're seeing is the blue screen of death. The computer is set to automatically reboot after one of those happens (I'm not sure where the setting is off-hand). Usually this means a bad driver. See if it will let you boot into safe-mode. Hit F8 right after the bios screen disappears (you can hit it multiple times, to make it easier).

I forgot to tell you since it reboots like that, windows thinks that it wasnt shut down properly and goes to that screen automatically....

you can choose safe mode (with networkin, command prompt)
or last known good configuration...

either way we have chosen every option and still does that.

Try running a virus scanner from Knoppix STD. Or if that fails, try a bootable virus distro like the ever so funky Hiren's Boot CD.

http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

thank you! I will try that, but while im doing that can someone tell me what they think this is? Like could this be something other than a virus?

Spyware, adware, scumware, dialers, backdoors, spambots....etc

Pick any or all of the above.

Cheers:

you think that its all of those? wow!
i hope that virus distro can detect all of those =)

Try booting into BIOS setup and look for an option for what action to take on a system crash. It will probably be called something like "restart on error".

Turn this off, and you will get the blue screen displayed next time your system crashes. Make a careful note of everything it says......... you should at least find out which programs are failing ;)

cool thanks i will try that when i get back to school

and....please don't connect it to the internet until after you've got the critters out!

cheers

If you are running XP or 2000, and you could somehow manage to boot into safe mode you could then right click on the My Computer icon and select Properties. Then in the System Properties window, select the Advanced tab. On that tab you will see Start up and Recovery. Click the button next to that.
A Start up and Recovery window will open. Mid way down you will see a section titled System Failure. UN-CHECK Automatically Restart.

Now if the crash occurs again you can read the stop error and then attempt to recover the system.

Or you could slave the hard drive to another Computer and recover the data, then reformat the drive and reinstall Windows.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Relyt

and....please don't connect it to the internet until after you've got the critters out!

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Yeah the first thing I did was turn off his wireless, and unplug his ethernet cord =)

I will try to restore it if I can get past the "blue screen of death" by turning off the restart on failure IO... I cant wait to see what it says!

thanks to everyone for their help and I will let you know how it goes.

If you can get into safe mode you might also use the Event Viewer to see if there are any clues in the logs. ;)

Ok I cannot find the restart on error in the bios, it is running pheonix bios...

also is that virus distro already compiled somewhere? I could not find the .iso or any download for it.