I'm trying to clean up an XP laptop which has some viruses and spyware on it. It's slow and freezes, and has a pop up (aol.software.exe) that won't go away and asks me to run Chkdisk. Norton AV was installed but not updated. So far I have:
Run Liveupdate and scanned with NAV. Reports all clean.
Installed and scanned with Ad-Aware and SuperAdBlocker.
Run Windows Update-all OK.
Run CCleaner and Disk Cleanup.
When I try to Defrag, it tells me that Chkdisk has to be run first. When I try to run Chkdisk it says it can't run at all!
Thinking that there is a virus in the start-up system and it's reinfecting on each boot-up, I tried to go into Safe Mode to run the antivirus/antispyware from there. It will go to the Safe Mode options screen, but when I select Safe Mode it just hangs and won't enter Safe Mode, I have to reboot.
Can anyone suggest what else I could try, as I'm almost at the stage of admitting defeat and advising a Windows reinstall to the owner.
Update: managed to boot it into 'Safe Mode With Networking', but it still won't run Chkdsk or Defrag. It also won't allow me to set a System Restore point.
Run Liveupdate and scanned with NAV. Reports all clean.
Installed and scanned with Ad-Aware and SuperAdBlocker.
Run Windows Update-all OK.
Run CCleaner and Disk Cleanup.
When I try to Defrag, it tells me that Chkdisk has to be run first. When I try to run Chkdisk it says it can't run at all!
Thinking that there is a virus in the start-up system and it's reinfecting on each boot-up, I tried to go into Safe Mode to run the antivirus/antispyware from there. It will go to the Safe Mode options screen, but when I select Safe Mode it just hangs and won't enter Safe Mode, I have to reboot.
Can anyone suggest what else I could try, as I'm almost at the stage of admitting defeat and advising a Windows reinstall to the owner.
Update: managed to boot it into 'Safe Mode With Networking', but it still won't run Chkdsk or Defrag. It also won't allow me to set a System Restore point.