Malware Chinese Invasion

telsave

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Disaster has struck yours truly and I am appealing for the help from my M'8s

It happened yesterday I know not how but suddenly my PC behaved erratically in as much as Microsoft Office every time I try to open Outlook or Word they I could not be accessed says it "configuring Microsoft Office Professional" and crashes saying the feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable. Use source C:\MSOCach\allusers\{90140000-0011-0000--0000-000000OFFICE}-C\ or Browse.

I tried to correct this but suddenly was confronted by Chinese everywhere. Finally my Avast IS reported an invasion and said it would sort everything out just let it carry out an indepth sweep of my drives and all foreign elements would be removed.

24 hours later it completed its scan and many files were deleted but not the Chinese files. I have tried IOBit delete also to no avail. I have attempted to run a repair from my Windows and Office CD's but the DVD player will not allow them to be played.

Which will make reformatting my drive a difficult exercise. Even Microsoft FixIt does not work.

When I try to run Avast from within windows I get "instup.exe Application Error The instruction at Ox750b99e4 referenced memory at 0x01ebcda8. The memory could not be read. Click OK to terminate the program.

I still cannot access Outlook or any Office programme. I have had to resort to my laptop (transferring my main address there) to see if anyone can suggest a way out of this for me please remember that my DVD drive will not allow my Windows and Office CD to run. I should say of course they run perfectly on my laptop.

I have ordered a new hard drive to put a new system on but if I cannot access my windows cd don't know how I can do this.

regards and help please any advice greatly appreciated.

PS Of course another thought I cannot back up my PC until I am clear of this rubbish or I will just carry it forwards - this is leading to top rate depression.

Unless anyone can advise anything different I can only think that I can install a new Windows and Office if the DVD drive allows it an build all my installs from scratch but are my docs effected also as these are my life
 
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try trend micro house call free scan see if it finds the problems

if fails as above create a usb install

have you tried any others apart from avast
 
Hi Unison many thanks for suggestion sorry to say that it is beyond my advanced years we used algorithms and slide rules even when I was at college none of these fancy calculators let alone computer things!!!!

Can I ask if you would be good enough to expand in English please. I am not sure if I know anyone called Rufus lol

regards
 
I would personally just reinstall windows, you don't need to buy a new hard drive once formatted it will be like new.
 
i personally like the challenge of finding the problem & sorting

deffo lot quicker just to format & start again but no satisfaction of beating the problem

personally would run a couple of cleaners see what they find
 
Just an update for the friends who have kindly offered advice and help.

Good old Amazon failed to deliver my new hard drive even though I paid extra for next day delivery. Yes I have complained.

I will try Hirems Boot Disk and format my flash and make it bootable it has been suggested that I transfer the window files onto it via my lap top and try to boot up from the flash. I will of course have to see if I can access the BIOS if so this could be worth trying.

I have got my doc files on an external hard drive with just a few on the HDD that has been attacked.

I have tried a number of malware and virus checkers to try to get rid of the Chinese but they refuse to move when you think they have gone they get back even when not on Internet which I disconnected immediately.

I did not have a racist bone in my body but I am having a re-think :)

Will keep you updated as my way of thanking you all but if there any other ideas to be thrown into the ring please do not hold back. Even though I am old and arthritic my PC is my work PC and I live on it.

Take care and grateful thanks to all
 
did you run the malware programs in safe mode and were they just the free ones ? you could try grabbing Rufus out of the downloads section put your windows disc in laptop point Rufus to your drive and see if it will make a bootable flash drive to boot from usb on my pc its f8 ...have you tried a restore to earlier date on the infected pc
 
Thanks again M8's for all your valuable help. Like many others Manic01 I did make a back up but it was about 3 months ago and a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I have promised myself to set up an automatic backup and must do when I get all this cleaned up. It's like giving up smoking it easy I have done it thousands of times (Mar Twain)

Yes I am making a bootable flash drive with you method Unison but am busy working on my lap top at the moment with PC switched off.

I know you will find this hard to believe but I am now well into day 4 for my overnight delivery from Amazon, they have refunded my postage without any other comment and all the tracking file states is 'The delivery of your parcel has been delayed because of a problem encountered by the carrier' I have asked for explanations and an indication when it may walk here but to no avail.


So much for Amazon customer service.

cheers
 
A couple of things here M8's if you can put up with me and help again.

First keeping you up to date with the Hard Drive I ordered from Amazon. I finally had a phone call from them last night, remember this was ordered on Monday 29th June for overnight delivery accepting their fees. They have now decided that the hard drive is lost in their system although it was delivered to their logistics centre 5 miles from my home on Tuesday morning according to the tracking. So after wasting 4 days of my life and I am unsure how many I have left, at least got my money back - kind souls!

Now trying to defeat the Chinese that you have been kind enough to offer advice and help as shown above and appreciated.

I had a spare drive in my computer so as I could not format my 'C' OS drive I could at least install a new OS on this small old HDD. Success! This is just what I did.

Now I thought all I had to do was run the new system and format the old drive. Whoa!! there trigger (for those young boffins out there that was the name of Roy Roger's Horse - what who was Roy Rogers? He was ..... never mind just goes to show how old I really am, if it helps I am the same age as Prof Hawkins with 1/1000 the brain power) Now where was I (Alzheimers kicking in again) Oh yes trying to format my old OS drive.

When I try I get Windows cannot complete the format.

Question is chaps. Does anyone have any ideas how I can format this drive or should it go in the bin (By the way not the answer I seek)

Any help warmly appreciated.
 
These might not be the most efficient methods, but here are two suggestions off the top of my head:

    • Go to start and search for run (alternatively use the shortcut [WinKey]+[R])
    • Type discmgmt.msc
    • Find the old C: drive
    • Right click and select Delete volume
    • Once the volume has been deleted, right click and select New volume
    • Your drive should now be available to use
    • Remove the power lead from the new C: drive.
    • Boot from your Windows install media.
    • On the option where you select which drive you want to install Windows to click the advanced option.
    • From here delete all existing partitions. (Do not create any new volumes or partitions here.)
    • Once that is complete, shut down and plug the C: drive back in.
    • Boot to Windows normally
    • Go to start and search for run (alternatively use the shortcut [WinKey]+[R])
    • Type discmgmt.msc
    • Find the old C: drive
    • Right click and select New volume
    • Your drive should now be available to use
If neither of those options work, get back to us - though you'll likely need a live disc such as GParted or Hirens.
 
Hi Little-pob

Many thanks for taking time out to try to help. I tried first method only to get the report file not found.

I then tried second method and computer would not boot from DVD Drive which is what was happening before. now computer refuses to boot up at all Hey Ho!

I shall contact m,y son and heir (Dutcho) find out what shift he is on (before I say what I want of course) and ask him to have a look at it

I used to have a Hirems disk but cannot find it, story of my life.

Again I thank you for your kindness
 
When you say it wont boot at all is it not coming on at all or you getting error. Are you able to boot up with another bootable disk like hirens or windows PE? If you can then it must be your windows disk
 
As all old father's do I handed the computer over to Dutcho my son. He tells me it is just about ready to bring back with not even a bowl of rice as compensation. He has a simple attitude -if in doubt format it!!!

Again I would like to thanks everyone for their kind support and help it is really appreciated.
 
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