hi!

My husband downloaded some songs from Limewire on his DELL PC (stupid, I know) about two weeks ago and then all hell broke loose.

I am not able to get online with the DELL computer to DL any malware/spyware or use Trendmicro. He is running Symantec and a REALLY old version of McAfee. Both have seens been unhelpful at identifying the issue.

I tried to restore the computer and it told me that it was not able to restore to that point and to pick another one...which I did, and nothing happened. (told me to pick another one again)
I then tried to reformat the PC using the WIN XP Boot Disk, and the CD drive won't reconize it. (?!?)

I really don't know where to start since I am unable to get online with it (it wont reconize our network) to do a diagnostic.

I have "shown hidden files" and stopped system restore.

The last virus scan that we were able to successfully complete showed something like w32.irc.bot or w32.bot as the name of the virus. (My husband didn't write it down, sorry)

Any help ideas on what could be going on, or how to start on this would be great!!

You got yourself into a real mess! Symantec and Mcafee won't clean these types of malwares. You need to download malware bytes onto a usb stick and ccleaner load them on the dell via a usb stick. That should clean alot of it out if you still can't get online, you have a problem where the malware is doing something called dns spoofing which the malware bytes may not clean if you still can't get on any websites google dns spoof fix. I had this happen and it was a pain in the a$$ to clean, but I did find a program to fix it

#1 here is that you never have two anti-virus programs on one computer. This would be one reason neither work correctly and your protection was lowered. If both are old then uninstall both. If one is current then keep that one and totally Uninstall the expired one.
Then try the steps HERE, with the exception of Deckard Scanner as it is not available. Substitute instead HiJackThis.
Follow all steps if possible and then post back with the logs.
If you know that these downloads from Limewire were the culprits then uninstall those, and Limewire as well.
Judy

thank you both for your suggestions!

The USB driver is a great idea...I will definatly do that.

I un-installed LIMEWIRE and any other strange programs he had and it did help a little, before it would not even let me log onto his name- we had to go under mine and then 'switch user'

I will un-install the McAfee and probably the symantec too...since I think they are both crap personally.

I will try all that then post and let u know if it worked...if I ever get this mess cleaned up what type of programs should I get to keep it from happening before...I already have the TrendMicro virus scan, Spybot and Ad-aware (only my on PCs). Are they're any newer/better ones out there??

Also- my VAIO came with Window One Livecare or something like that...is it any good? Thanks again

Yes , Superantispyware and malwarebytes.. link to both in my signature and also spywareblaster ,it doesn't do a scan but adds bad sites to IE and Firefox security sections ,so install it and keep it upto date .

I successfully loaded Malwarebytes and CCleaner on the DELL and it found 24 (!) Malwares, mostly Trojan.Zlob and one Backdoor

the DELL froze during the Quarantin and I had to Ctrl+Alt+Delete to get out of Malwarebytes after the scan was finished and now the PC is really acting screwy...the control pannel won't populate and still no luck with iexplorer.

I'm still trying some other options to least get it online and DL some more programs...buts thats where I am now

Some of the bad malwares replace vaild windows files and you have to end up reloading windows. You can try start menu run type in cmd press enter type in sfc /scannow which will run a scan and make sure all the operating system files are valid Microsoft one's

The control panel icon are links to .cpl files look in /windows/system32 and see if the files are still there if they are then the malware hid the icons in the registry or in the group policy
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313808

So you still can't get online can you ping a website?

I ran CCleaner again and did the registry fix and it fixed a 'whole bunch' of things and now I can at least get into control pannel to add/remove programs. at this point I really have no idea what I am doing and just following ya'll suggestions.

seems like I am getting control back one baby step at a time though!

I am doing that right now and its telling me that the DLL Cache is missing...I have my Win XP reinstallation CD and its not doing anything when I put it in.

Can I just reformat this thing and be done with it?!?!