This one is a little advanced, but I can't find anything in the usual places I go for tech help so when I remembered that this section existed I thought I'd see if anyone here had any ideas.
My parents have an HP G61 laptop running Windows 7, and it's picked up a virus, despite the presence of something calling itself antivirus software (another fine Norton product, no surprises there). They've asked me to get rid of it, but now it's had time to install itself the damn thing is proving to be rather resilient.
I've tried all the usual - scans with all the usual programs, scans run in Safe Mode, everything. They found a bunch of things, but most were traces left by the virus, and not the virus itself. As far as I can tell, I'm dealing with a rootkit here. The next step I was planning was to boot into a recovery environment (I have Kaspersky Rescue Disk) and scan from there so that the virus can't hide or defend itself, but that's where I ran into an unrelated problem: HP systems do not like booting from USB.
If I turn it on with the USB drive inserted, then it hangs before I can get to the boot menu. If I turn it on without the USB drive inserted, then I can get to the boot menu but the USB drive isn't listed because it wasn't there when it ran the connected devices check and BIOS doesn't do plug and play. The best I've got is a techie friend of mine saying he remembers HP machines needing some special procedure sometimes, but he doesn't remember what that procedure was. Any ideas?
My parents have an HP G61 laptop running Windows 7, and it's picked up a virus, despite the presence of something calling itself antivirus software (another fine Norton product, no surprises there). They've asked me to get rid of it, but now it's had time to install itself the damn thing is proving to be rather resilient.
I've tried all the usual - scans with all the usual programs, scans run in Safe Mode, everything. They found a bunch of things, but most were traces left by the virus, and not the virus itself. As far as I can tell, I'm dealing with a rootkit here. The next step I was planning was to boot into a recovery environment (I have Kaspersky Rescue Disk) and scan from there so that the virus can't hide or defend itself, but that's where I ran into an unrelated problem: HP systems do not like booting from USB.
If I turn it on with the USB drive inserted, then it hangs before I can get to the boot menu. If I turn it on without the USB drive inserted, then I can get to the boot menu but the USB drive isn't listed because it wasn't there when it ran the connected devices check and BIOS doesn't do plug and play. The best I've got is a techie friend of mine saying he remembers HP machines needing some special procedure sometimes, but he doesn't remember what that procedure was. Any ideas?
