Hi,
First of all, I would like to apologize for my English because it is not my natural language and I know I’m not that good with it.
Now, back to what matters.
I’ve had a machine running Windows XP home (SP1 Portuguese edition) for a while with no anti-virus software installed. Never bothered much with it since it had no connection to the outside world.
Lately the machine started to behave abnormally taking much longer to do things so, I decided to install Avast home edition (Portuguese version downloaded today) to run a scan on my disks to see if everything was all right.
I proceeded as I usually do: installed, agreed do scan on boot and reboot.
During the boot scan several files were identified as infected and I choose “Move all to Quarantine” (the text wasn’t exactly this because I installed the Portuguese version, but I translated it to make it more clear).
The virus identified, if I remember well, were: “Allaple” and “Virut”.
After the scan, the system continued to boot but is now stuck in the login menu. I enter the username and the password, it then claims to be loading my personal settings and from there goes do “Saving you session settings” and returns to the login menu. I’ve reboot the system but with no change, also tried safe mode but still get the same.
My question, and what I need you to help me with, is the following: Is there a way to restore the files in quarantine back to the system so (hopefully) it all goes back to what it was and I can backup my files to reinstall windows? I can’t run the avast application, so what I need to know is if there is some way to boot windows in some kind of text mode to call de avast application with some arguments I have no idea of.
I installed avast yesterday evening, and when i had to reboot after installation, i couldn’t. I boot, i get my login-pane, i log in, hear my login-sound, get my wallpaper, and immediately after that, i hear my logoff sound, and get back to my login-pane. This morning, nothing’s changed.
You’ve done what I’ll suggest…
This is a egg & chicken problem… you need a file to boot and it is infected.
But I really want to know from Alwil, how could the user restore a file from Chest (Quarantine) if he/she can’t boot/login…
Do you have a Windows XP CD? Maybe Restoration Console allow you to go to Chest folder and copy the files to another computer with avast, in the same Chest folder. You’ll be able to open avast, open Chest and then ‘extract’ the files from the encrypted status (Chested) to an USB drive… Maybe you can restore the files to their original place into the infected computer…
This probably means that the virus infected one of the vital system files, and as soon as avast moved these to the quarantine, the system can’t boot anymore.
What you’d normally do is boot from the Windows setup CD, and select the Repair option.
This should refresh all system files.
Hopefully…
Isn’t it possible - on version 5 maybe - a floppy/CD/USB drive rescue to access avast Chest before booting? Wouldn’t BART CD have a new sales scheme that allows home users to buy and use it?
I’m out of time right now, but I will as soon as I can try to repair from the windows cd and see what happens.
Hope that the next time i post here is to say it’s all solved :
Anyway, thanks for the help.
Well, one of two things happened. Either I’m not doing it right or this doesn’t solve my problem.
I boot from windows cd and wait until I get to a menu like the one in the link provided by Tech I then choose the second option to repair the installation and get to a console like the one in the second image of that link. From this point on: I’m lost ???
So, can you please enlighten me if I’m doing it the wrong way, or if this is what you suggested, who can I proceed from here?
if this was detected then how many of the system files were destroyed. And more to the point is the infector still on the system - Could this be a case for a reformat
At the end of the scan avast claimed 2201 files were infected by one or the other virus. I have no doubt the system will never be stable again until a complete format and windows reinstall. My problem currently is just that i need to save my personal files still in the disk before I proceed to the format.
My problem is a little more basic that lack of disk space. I have no way to access the data that i need saved! The repair console in the windows cd gives me “Access denied!” when I try do enter any directory other that windows or one of it’s sub-directories.
Even tried to boot from a linux live cd, but that isn’t working either. To bad this happened in my laptop, had it happen in my desktop and I would have already assembled the disk to another machine and saved my stuff…
Anyway… for now I will try to find some other live cd that boots in my machine.
Really getting unhappy about this all situation.
Finally I see some light
I finally found a live cd that doesn’t refuse to boot in my machine (it’s a distribution dedicated to system recovery: quite appropriate ;)) . I can now copy my files and will probably be installing windows in a few hours.
I want to thank all of you who tried to help me with this boring problem.
I take this as solved, but there should be some way to recover from “damage” done by avast.
