Entire Computer Stalls Completly During Spyware/Adware/Virus scanning

[DavidWatersUGP]

Hey Everyone,

My dad's computer has been acting up lately. He is using Windows XP SP2 (probably shouldnÂ’t have loaded SP2 huh?) and recently he got some viruses, which were all removed, as far as the scan could go before it stalled, but I'm sure we got all the viruses. Because another virus scanner got all the names of all of them, but just could not delete them (AVG) and we deleted all of those through MacAfee.

However, even with the virus's gone, I'm not sure what this is, but randomly during a Spyware scan through Ad aware it will just freeze up the entire computer, and the only thing you can do is take out the power cable, plug it back in and re-boot. It's not in a certain directory or file that triggers it, it seems like it's pretty much random. The Virus Scan also never completes because it does the same thing.

What the heck is this? And what can I do to stop it?

Thanks!
David Waters

 

[ShoobieRat]

1. You have WAY too little RAM. That's your first major problem. 256MB is not nearly enough.

2. It's possible that your AV software detected a peice of spyware or a virus that was in the registry or a critical system file, got rid of it, and shouldn't have. This is sometimes a problem, especially with infected registries and viruses in the sys32 folder.

Suggestions:

1. GET MORE RAM. I have a feeling that's going to really clear things up.

2. If all else fails, do the "fk it" dance and reload that machine from scratch.

 

[DavidWatersUGP]

First of I stated this was my fathers computer and not mine. He has over 700MB of RAM, plenty. Second of all, we already backup things up before and did switch in a past which did not really work so well, so were in no mode to do another fresh install and bring things back.

 

[DavidWatersUGP]

Found out that every scanner seems to freeze on this file

driver.cab...which I believe was in some sort of i389/ folder (not sure of the exact number I know it started with a 3 though). I saw it on the screen but did not write it down.

What could be the problem? I'm about to take of SP2 on the computer anyways.

Thanks

 

[DavidWatersUGP]

UPDATE: It stalled during the "Updating Registry" part of the uninstallation of SP2 Hmmm....

 

[DavidWatersUGP]

I restarted and it boots into windows, but extremly slow and there is no bar on the bottom. Probably have to reinstall Windows XP, but I want to be able to keep all the programs without having to put his hard drive has a slave in my computer, and back up his data. Is this possible.

Help please!
Thanks