google search engine sends me to ad pages

[melissaherman]

Hi all,

My homepage is google.com. Upon entering anything and searching, it brings up the list of hits as normal, but if I click on ANY link, it sends me to an ad page or one of those annoying search engines- even if I search for yahoo.com and click on the link, it takes me somewhere else. Yahoo.com works fine, everything else on the internet appears normal.

Also, I tried to download some antivirus software- I tried hijackthis and adaware, both downloaded fine and then started doing the scan, but before either scan was finished, they shut themselves off. Upon trying to open the programs again, it gives me an error like "Failed to connect to service". this has happened wth both programs.

Running windows XP on PC. Any suggestions?

[Pablo49]

I probably do not need to tell you, but the computer is malware infected. The question is just how severely.
Go to this page. Download and burn to CD both BitDefender and Kaspersky (#'s 2 and 5). Be sure to burn them as a bootable image, not a data file. If you are not sure how to do this, use this program. Set the infected computer to boot from CD and run both of these scans.
Let us know of the results.



PS, be very careful with HijackThis. It can break the system if you do not know how to interpret the output.

[bucksfanjimj]

Just to add to Pablo's suggestion, I would also run Malwarebytes. You can find it at Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com.

[melissaherman]

Hi, thanks for the help!

As an update- the link to the Kaspersky program was broken and I'm not sure I ended up finding the right thing. I burned the other one to a disc and tried to boot, it looked like it was doing something and then leftme with a message saying "No suitable x server found for your card", which clearly meant nothing to me. Anyway so I restarted and don't really know what to do!

I also tried downloading that malwarebytes program as suggested but it did the same thing as the others, downloaded and installed fine, but after trying to run a scan, it worked for about 10 seconds until the program shut itself off and refused to open again.

So. Still stuck!!! Any other suggestions? Thanks!

[Fehnris]

Try restarting your PC in safe mode and then run Malwarebytes. Could be that some of the malware is affecting and stopping Malwarebytes from running properly.

Restart the PC.
As soon as the PC starts rebooting keep taping the F8 key until you get a menu.
Use the arrow keys to select Safe Mode.
Press Enter.

[Pablo49]

Try this link to the Kaspersky Resue CD.

BitDefender runs on top of a version of Linux called Knoppix. Xserver is the default video driver which is not compatible with all video cards. Reboot the system with the CD in the tray. When you get to the BitDefender splash screen hit the TAB key once and type in "xmodule=fbdev" (without quotation marks) and hit Enter. You may have a hard time reading the screen due to the dark background. If you still get an error message try "xmodule=vesa"

If you are still having problems with Bit Defender, download F-Secure Rescue CD from this page. Unzip the file and go down a couple of sub folders to find the .iso file to burn.

On second thought don't use F-Secure. It can cause some problems.

[Jonnas_tan]

Restart your computer in Safe Mode with networking and then access the BitDefender online scanner from here:
Free Online Virus Scan - BitDefender Online Scanner

Hope it works!

Jonathan

[Jonnas_tan]

just being curious!

[Bama19642]

If trouble keeps reappearing you probably can stop the problem by turning off system restore. You can TRY Last Known Good Configuration, if that works you should be able to download anything you want. If you can download things normally turn system restore off. Heres how to do that:

(Windows XP)
1. Turn off System Restore.
On the Desktop, right-click My Computer.
Click Properties.
Click the System Restore tab.
Check Turn off System Restore.
Click Apply, and then click OK.

2. Reboot and follow the sames steps to turn restore back on again.