Infected computer

[Dairyleadunkers]

Hi there Malwarebytes,

My computer contracted a virus about a month ago and I haven't been able to get rid of it. I usually use MBAM as my sole anti virus program, but my university requires us to have a copy of kapersky as well. When I first noticed the virus, Kapersky gave me this message: "detected active malicious software. Virus: MEM:Backdoor.Win32.Sinowal.ce, location: system memory". I tried the disinfect with reboot option loads of times and then the system restore, but the program keeps detecting the same thing again and again. Malware bytes doesn't even pick it up and on the full scan the comp is given a clean bill of health by the logs. I read up a bit and sinowal is apparently very nasty so I need to get rid of it asap!!

Massively appreciate any help you can give as i am stuck. I was also unable to download and run the DDS program as the link on the 'posting new topic' guide was broken and i couldn't find a working link on the net. Any advice?

Thanks in advance,

Dairylea.

[screen317]

Hi and welcome to Malwarebytes.

I'm afraid I have some very bad news...

The infection that you can see in the Kaspersky scan, Win32.Sinowal is what we call a file-infector.

These are particularly malicious, in that they infect all of your legitimate programs.

The problem is... the virus is very buggy, so it does not do a good job of infecting your files, so any attempt to disinfect and possibly save your files would be futile, in that, due to the buggy virus, we cannot properly disinfect your files.

What I highly recommend now is a reformat and a reinstallation of Windows XP.

Please let me know if you are prepared to do so.

You may backup and save all files except programs (meaning pictures and documents are okay), because if you backup any applications, they will transfer to your clean system, and you will be reinfected.

So, with that said, do you have your Windows CD?