Hi Essexboy,
After reading your post I was elated. I downloaded ComboFix, followed your instructions and disabled Avast, MBAM and PCTools Firewall. Let Combofix run.
- It downloaded the Microsoft Recovery Console
- Successfully installed it
- The blue box showed the completed stages and it reached 50
- Then it rebooted my computer
- The two-second delay with the black screen occurred as ComboFix said it would
- I didn't press anything and let it continue to the logon screen
- I logged on to my normal administrator account
- The ComboFix blue box came up and it said 'Preparing log file' and under it 'Don't run any programs until ComboFix is finished
- I think at the end it said deleting some set.tmp files from the IE directory as well as
- system32\.....\lmhosts
- system32\pwdmon.dll
- I let the computer boot as normal
- All programs loaded successfully (including Avast, MBAM and PCTools Firewall)
- Only difference was a Windows message appearing saying that Automatic Updates is turned off
- I already had Automatic Updates turned off, however the little message bubble never used to appear
- PCTools Firewall came up with a few warnings, however I allowed every single one of them and clicked apply
- ComboFix then just stayed on that screen with the above message
- I waited half an hour but it still stayed like that
- I closed the box and rebooted
- Now the black screen and 'which system do you want to boot with' appears each time
- I looked in C:\ but there is not ComboFix.txt
- However, I just found a file ComboFix in C:\ComboFix\ which I have PMed to you.
Please help me! Now I am really worried that I did something wrong! Has ComboFix somehow now messed up my computer?
It appears to boot ok, however I do not know what ComboFix has done.
I do know that it is a powerful program though. Please help me!
Yours sincerely,
A very worried Avastfan1