System overrun with spyware

[Capt. Picard]

A collegue of mine brought me his pc that is overrun with popup spyware (he has a teenage daughter that explains everything). I've tried Spybot and Adaware to no avail. I even ran it in safe mode. And I dont think that any other antispyware will help much. Also when I try to install IE7 it reboots just as the installation begins.

What more can I do except formatting the pc. Will reinstalling WinXP from within windows help?

[crainger]

I'm afraid a format and reinstall is usually the only way to go when it's that bad.

[grey_1]

You could try a chkdsk /r off the repair console. Maybe it can repair enough of the damage to be able to clean the rest out?

[J-Mag]

Roll back the OS back as far as you can.

[|MaguS|]

Stop surfing the porn!

[Camp0rz]

Take the hdd out and throw at his daughter's head.

[crainger]

Stop surfing the porn!

Teenage girl surfing for porn? Capt gets her numbers! She sounds like fun.

[DCult]

A friend of mine got infected though e-mule and has the same symptoms. Instant reboot without warning. No antivirus could detect anything because the spyware/virus was undetectable, i.e. it isn't visible by the file system. It runs as a service, a lzx.sys file. I also recommended to him a reformat, but he won't listen. :p

[nekrosoft13]

i cleaned out something like that few times(never on my PC). usually takes quite a while.

what really helps out to start is if you get a firewall running, and block all internet traffic, don't just unplug the cable. Why software firewall? because not only will it stop tracking, it will also tell you whats going on, as in this and that is trying to connect. you could try Comodo firewall is free.

unlocker(http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/) is a great tool also. Quite often spyware files won't just delete because they are locked by some handle thats where unlocker comes in handy

[evilghost]

Good time to put Ubuntu on it, Mark Shuttleworth is from South Africa so you'd be supporting your country.

[nekrosoft13]

great idea, teenage girl with linux, she will be doing even more bitching then she is doing now

[evilghost]

great idea, teenage girl with linux, she will be doing even more bitching then she is doing now

The system won't need AV, won't be infected with spyware, and Picard won't be rebuilding it every weekend because her MySpace EMO buddies are seeding out IFRAME malware 'sploits for IE.