Igotowned, can you boot into safe mode? If not, you got really owned. 
If you can boot to safe mode there may be help. HijackThis! http://www.trendsecure.com/portal/en-US/tools/security_tools/hijackthis can see processes that ‘stealth’ themselves. Post your HijackThis! log to this forum. http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/forum22.html
If that can’t get rid of the bad process and you can boot to safe mode, you can search the Registry there for the process’ current filename(s) and delete whatever in the Registry is launching them.
Another utility that may reveal suspicious processes is Sysinternals Autoruns. Microsoft bought out Sysinternals, hiring some of their people who continue to update the Sysinternals free utilities. Microsoft wanted their ERD Commander, which is now called DaRT (Diagnostics an Repair Tool), a part of Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP). Unfortunately that ain’t free.
One of the ways stealth malware protects itself is by using one of the several ‘legal’ methods there are of running a process during boot to write run commands into the Registry to launch other processes. Once those launch, they delete the run commands and ‘attach’ multiple file handles to themselves, usually from explorer.exe
One thing that can deal with these is Unlocker. http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/ Install it then locate the current malware file, rightclick on it then click Unlocker. Select Delete and Kill Process. This will simultaneously kill explorer.exe and delete the malware file, causing a BSOD. Poke the reset button and you may have killed your malware. It won’t have had the chance to set things up during shutdown to relaunch at boot and sanitize the Registry, so the rest of it can be found and deleted.
If it comes back, there’s a low-tech solution. After the PC is done booting, turn off the power switch on the back of the box or pull the power cord. Plug back in and boot to safe mode to clean the registry.
Another trick it causing the PC to reboot if you try booting to Safe Mode.
However, the bad guys have advanced beyond those fixes. Some newer malware can either sanitize the registry so there’s nothing shows up in safe mode to delete. I’ve encountered one very nasty one that could actually run in safe mode, which is supposed to be IMPOSSIBLE! Only processes from Microsoft are supposed to be able to be running in safe mode, yet the bad guys have figured out how to do it. When I got one of those, I had to connect the hard drive to a clean PC and scan it. It took Grisoft (I was using AVG 7.x then, which didn’t catch the nasty thing) four days (and around 12 rapid fire update releases) before AVG was able to fully clean it out. This one also would delete all the major AV and anti-malware apps and blocked them from being installed.
Pulling the power on that one revealed another new twist. Replacing or renaming at least one critical system file needed to boot, then putting it back right during shutdown. Pull the plug and your PC no longer boots. A Repair Install will get you back to Windows, and your virus. Time to pull the drive and connect to a clean system to scan.
NEVER try to open any file or run any program from an infected drive connected to a clean system! Scan, scan, and scan again, wait for some updates to your AV and scan it again. Put it back in its own box and see if the virus comes back. If not, yay! Run HijackThis! and Autoruns to locate any leftovers and delete them.
Another useful tool is a bootable CD with utilities that can explore the infected system and edit its Registry. ERD Commander / DaRT can do that and there are some free ones like Ultimate Boot CD or Bart PE. If you have access to MDOP, DaRT 5 is for XP and DaRT 6 is for Vista- but you can build a 6.0 CD on a Vista system (with the latest Standalone System Sweeper updates) and boot an XP box to run SSS.
It’s always a new adventure with the ever clever new surprises from the crackers.
P.S. I remember the first computer magazine article printed in the 80’s about the possibility of programs that could exhibit “virus like” behaviours. My thought then was “YOU IDIOTS! You’ve just given people some very bad ideas! THINK before unleashing such stupid ideas on the world!”. Computer viruses probably would’ve happened anyway, why’d the honest programmers have to go and give the rotten ones the idea in the first place? It was the computer equivalent of publishing an easy recipe for nerve gas in a newspaper.
