I believe I have some form of root kit malware that is hidden from most programs and is extermely difficult to remove. Anti virus programs don’t see it. Only one root kit removal program has detected it (avast- aswmbr) but it can’t seem to remove it.
I have tried the following root kit removal programs: sophos (saw no problems); bit defender (saw nothing); and others I can’t tell you about right now because I can’t minimize the browser window to look for it (another feature of this malware).
When the problem first manifested I reinstalled windows from the backup drive in windows which didn’t work so i reinstalled windows from disk, which also, surprisingly, didn’t work.
I am using an HP desktop running windows 7 quad core with 4 meg of ram and a terabyte hard drive. I am using firefox to write this and also use chrome browsers.
I can’t open the settings in chrome to check the extensions and reinstalling it doesn’t seem to help. Don’t know about Firefox just started using it when chrome went wacky. Haven’t installed any extensions i know of.
Note: You need to run the version compatible with your system. If you are not sure which version applies to your system download both of them and try to run them. Only one of them will run on your system, that will be the right version.
[*]Right click to run as administrator (XP users click run after receipt of Windows Security Warning - Open File). When the tool opens click Yes to disclaimer.
[*]Select additions at the bottom
[*]Press Scan button.
Here is the scan result. Also both browsers are not handling downloads normally. Firefox won’t show download content at all and chrome shows it on the bottom left as usual but won’t open it. I have to go to “all downloads” to find and open them.
Save this as fixlist.txt, in the same location as FRST.exe
Run FRST and press Fix
On completion a log will be generated please post that
THEN
Please download AdwCleaner by Xplode onto your desktop.
[*]Close all open programs and internet browsers.
[*]Double click on AdwCleaner.exe to run the tool.
[*]Click on Scan.
[*]After the scan is complete click on “Clean”
[*]Confirm each time with Ok.
[*]Your computer will be rebooted automatically. A text file will open after the restart.
[*]Please post the content of that logfile with your next answer.
[*]You can find the logfile at C:\AdwCleaner[S1].txt as well.