Dear all,

I have a friend who's using AOL as her provider. Yesterday she recieved a message asking her to "click here" to upgrade her AOL package. After the computer seemingly downloaded something it restarted itslef. But now it never finishes loading up fully, instead, a message comes up saying that it needs to be restarted again. There is no access to desktop or anything, so can not connect to Net to try again.

Please help,

Thanx

Honestly, this goes for any email, if its an email telling you to update personal details, update software, etc, be very cautious. Often these can be fakes and lead to the infection of your computer or the loss of personal details.

Could you please post a Hijack This Log to the forum. Click the link in my signature to find out how.

Hey Owen,

Yeah , I know, there are a lot of things out there that will mess up your computer if you download them, the thing is that my friends desktop will not load up, so posting Hijack this logs etc.. is a bit difficult. Im not sure how stable the computer is at this point.

How can you diagnose the computer if you can't get the desktop to load up? All it does it keep restarting. I will try and get more information of my friend about how the computer is running.

Cheers for your time

Could you possibly give me more information about the Operating System and any error messages that your friend (or you) get?

Yep, no problem. Will find out and post back here as soon as I can.

Cheers

Hey Owen,

According to my friend, when the computer is turned on it starts to load up and then comes up with an 'Install' message which says "The network adapter files have been installed. Click OK and restart computer"

But the computer never finishes loading up, just keeps going round in a circle.

If your friend can't get a Hijack This Log, can you tell your friend before the computer restarts to press Ctrl+Alt+Del and list all processes running in task manager. Your friend needs to note every process. The list should look something like this depending on his/her Operating System:
smss.exe
winlogon.exe
services.exe
lsass.exe
svchost.exe
svchost.exe
spoolsv.exe
svchost.exe
Explorer.EXE

etc. This will help me determine whats wrong with your friends computer.

Hi Owen,

I'm the friend with the PC problem. I'm running Windows ME..

These are the files running when the message comes up:

Install
Nprotect
Mdm
Cmdninst
Runonce

Does this mean anything to you?

Could you please restart the computer and before the message comes up. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and end the Process called Install.

Then see if you can get a Hijack This Log.