Please HELP!

[morgan]

I was scanning my HDD's and and avast was detecting some trojan viruses so i moved them to the virus chest. i later turned off my PC and now it won't turn on again, well it just freezes on the desktop while the system tray icons are loading or it freezes the moment i try to open anything. the way it freezes is slightly random but it's always before all my system tray icons are loaded.

PC works fine in safe mode though. i tried to do a system restore and it goes through the process but when it comes to starting back up again it freezes even earlier than ususal, before any of the desktop icons are loaded and only displays my background wallpaper nothing else. i also tried to use the 'Last Known Good Configuration' option but that does the same thing.

the other thing i did when i was scanning for viruses was delete the MEMORY.dmp file and i also ticked the box that says something like "automatically delete file on startup" so i'm wondering is that what is causing this? how do i change that setting so it dosn't automatically delete anymore?

i also can't view my virus chest it has red writing saying "action completed with errors" under the resume tab.
in errors report tab it says Program cannot use Chest client: (null)
--->Description: Virus chest server is not running RPC communication failed.

would really, really love some help, i know it's all caused by something i've done with avast! the night before. my current version is 07113-1, 13/11. most frustrating thing in the world not being able to use my PC.

[FreewheelinFrank]

Hi morgan,

Have you tried booting into Last Known Good:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000626.htm

EDIT: Oops, sorry, I see you did. Not quite awake yet.

[igor]

If all you did was delete memory.dmp, then it couldn't cause the problems you describe (the memory.dmp file is useless - it's created during a bluescreen for further analysis what happened - but it's not used for anything by the OS itself).

What is the exact built of avast! you are using (the program version, not VPS)?

[morgan]

avast! 4.7 free home version.
thanks for help so far.

[igor]

I mean the exact build - something like 4.7.1083 (you can find it in the about box)

[morgan]

Build: Sep2007 (4.7.1043)

[morgan]

*bump*

my PC is acting slightly different today in that it managed to do the system restore upto a point where it gave a "Restoration Incomplete" error message. the Last Known Good Configuration also loaded fully this time with all the system tray icons and i managed to open things like the calculator, wordpad and even Windows Messenger. It did seem like everything was a bit laggy and slower than usual and as soon as i try to open any of my Hard Drives or Firefox it freezes dead.

everything still runs fine in Safe Mode, any idea on what's causing this?

[sanctuary24]

I think Avast defends itself against tampering and thats what is causing system restore to be incomplete, its an option in Avast I dont know wether its a good thing temporarily disabling this feature while you system restore but it maybe causing the restore problem

[morgan]

ok so how do i do a system restore with avast? surely people have done so.

how do i disable whatever avast is doing to stop me from doing a system restore?

[sanctuary24]

my mistake I must be getting confused

[morgan]

huh

so avast! isn't the reason why i'm getting Restoration Incomplete?

everything went wrong after scanning and adding viruses to the chest using avast!
if i uninstall avast! and restart PC will that fix all this?

[FreewheelinFrank]

huh

so avast! isn't the reason why i'm getting Restoration Incomplete?

everything went wrong after scanning and adding viruses to the chest using avast!
if i uninstall avast! and restart PC will that fix all this?

avast! doesn't run in Safe Mode, so if you can't run System Restore in Safe Mode, uninstalling avast won't help.

As you originally said you had some Trojans, I would run some more scans in Safe Mode and see if that helps.

DrWeb CureIT! will run in Safe Mode without installing, I think: try that.

Also, can you get into Safe Mode with Networking? If you can and you have internet access, try a few online scans:

F-Secure
BitDefender
Panda
Trend Micro Housecall

Also, try using MSCONFIG to disable all your startup items: if the computer starts and runs OK, selectively re-enable startup items until you find the one that is causing the problem.

http://www.netsquirrel.com/msconfig/index.html

[morgan]

thanks FreewheelinFrank for all the info and links etc.

i disabled all the startup icons and the desktop loaded as normal but the same thing still happens as soon as i try to open any drives, files or programs; it just freezes dead.

safe mode with networking does work (that's how i've been posting on here) so right now i'm scanning the computer using Trend Micro Housecall.

in the support email from avast! they just said to uninstall avast!, restart PC and reinstall avast! would fix it 

i really do not understand why i can't just system restore, i have done so in the past...

[FreewheelinFrank]

in the support email from avast! they just said to uninstall avast!, restart PC and reinstall avast! would fix it

Well, I'd try that, then.

i really do not understand why i can't just system restore, i have done so in the past...

Deleting malware from a System Restore point can mean that System Restore won't work. Or it could be something else entirely. I don't know if avast! has a new feature that is interfering with System Restore. Try uninstalling as advised. Also continue with the scans and report any findings.

Another one to try is the Ewido scanner for spyware:

http://www.ewido.net/en/

Hit the 'Scan now' button.

[DavidR]

i really do not understand why i can't just system restore, i have done so in the past...

System Restore is far from infallible, I don't use it because it might not work as you hope it would when you come to 'need' it. You do however, need to have something to replace it before you consider disabling it and there is software that does that like GoBack.

I use Disk Imaging software that take an exact image of your partition of hard disk and that can restore your partition/s to what they were at the point in time when the image was taken. I do a regular weekly image of my partitions as a part of my system maintenance and if I experience a problem I restore the last back-up image and I'm up and running in about 20 minutes.

System Restore - Info - Troubleshooting
System Restore MVP site - http://bertk.mvps.org/
There are many, many reasons why a System Restore may fail. For example, see "Why are previous restore points not working?" in the "Troubleshooting" section of this official Microsoft page:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

There's lots more on that page that's worth reading too. Note especially the sections on "Does System Restore protect personal data files?" (the short answer: no); "What should I do if System Restore does not work?"; "Why are my restore points missing or deleted?"; "Why does the System Restore Wizard lockup?"; and so on. Just a few minutes on that page ought to convince just about anyone that System Restore is not intended for heavy-duty system protection!