Computer Virus, Ad-Aware?

Zircon

New Member
I really need some help! Last week a window masquerading as a true windows screen but with four interlocking puzzle pieces as a logo in the upper left corner made an appearance on my computer screen. I have been sort of aware of this type of crap before so assumed it was some type of Malware, but Ctrl-Alt-Del wouldn't get rid of it. I had to turn the computer off to get rid of it, turned it back on and restored it to a previous date. Everything seemed ok.

On a previous computer I had had Ad-Aware and Spy-Bot running, so I did a search for Ad-Aware. Ended up at cnet, a site I was familiar with and trusted ... downloaded it ... or so I thought ... and ran it. I don't actually see it anywhere. I see Undeleter ... a yellow an orange life preserver logo.

Then I discovered a LOT of my photographs had disappeared ( a few folders of which I had saved to disk, but only a few) all but a few of my bookmarks had disappeared as well, my free version of Capture NX which had been bundled with my Nikon D300 won't work any more, and God knows what else.

I really think the Undeleter download did it. But maybe it was the Windows Recovery Malware. I right clicked and did a 'Restore previous versions' of some of my picture folders. Got back quite a few, but there's still a ton missing. There were two days I could recover those files from. Now those two days are gone, and the other days that are there, the folders are empty and I can't recover anything from them, of course.

Man, would I just love to have the pr**ks in front of me who developed this piece of s**t! Just for a minute! Unlike the old saying, revenge would be a dish best served hot ... no planning just give me an old Louisville Slugger and we'd see how many legs would remain unbroken.

Anyway, is there any chance at all, that I can get the rest of my photographs back. And yes, I do back up my photographs. I am an amateur photographer. I take a lot of photographs. I've had external hard drives crash, but never lost a thing because I'd backed them up on DVD's ... loads of them. I just hadn't had the time to get to the ones on this new computer. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated ... more than greatly appreciated ... you'd have a friend for life.
 
OK! Getting my files back! Here's what I did. Right clicked on a file, chose Properties and saw by the size that the contents were still there! Went to Control Panel, Folder Options, View and clicked "Show hidden files, folders and drives". Went back to my picture folders ... low and behold they are still there ... but still faint ... half hidden. Clicked a file, saw it had the hidden box checked (the Folders Options button had only half unhid them ... hadn't unchecked the box on each photograph). So I clicked the first picture, scrolled to the last one in the folder, shift-left mouse button to select them all, right clicked, hit properties, took the check mark out of the "Hidden" box ... and Viola! Folder is restored. By the way, checking the "Show hidden files, folders, and drives" in the Folder Options also brought back the restore points for the folders that had been missing. Didn't need them then, though.

Obviously I have a virus, though, so I'm still going to need some help. But, I do have those precious photographs back. Hope this helps someone. Now, if I could only regain the use of my CaptureNX.
 
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My advice would be to get rid of Adaware and spybot and do the following and post the requested logs for me to go through.

Please download Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware from here or here and save it to your desktop.
  • Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
  • At the end, be sure a checkmark is placed next to
    • Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
    • and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware
  • then click Finish.
  • If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version. Please keep updating until it says you have the latest version.
  • Once the program has loaded, select Perform quick scan, then click Scan.
  • When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
  • Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
  • A log will be saved automatically which you can access by clicking on the Logs tab within Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

If for some reason Malwarebytes will not install or run please download and run Rkill.scr, Rkill.exe, or Rkill.com but DO NOT reboot the system and then try installing or running Malwarebytes. If Rkill (which is a black box) appears and then disappears right away or you get a message saying rkill is infected, keep trying to run rkill until it over powers the infection and temporarily kills it. Once a log appears on the screen, you can try running malwarebytes or downloading other programs.



Download the HijackThis installer from here.
Run the installer and choose Install, indicating that you accept the licence agreement. The installer will place a shortcut on your desktop and launch HijackThis.

Click Do a system scan and save a logfile

Most of what HijackThis lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

Post the logfile that HijackThis produces along with the Malwarebytes Anti-Malware log
 
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