Computer is borked

[Antonious_Bloc]

So on Monday I got back home, watched an episode of How I met your mother online, played the Sims 3, etc. Nothing out of the ordinary.

On Tuesday afternoon when I fired up my computer, after it booted me up I was informed via error message that explorer.exe could not launch. So i hit ok, ran explorer.exe from task manager, and then googled the problem. It's a corrupt or infected "wininet.dll". I downloaded a new one, replaced it, and ran ad-aware. No problems.
My computer randomly restarts. I thus go to safe mode and run Spybot- Search and Destroy. It finds some stuff and is able to get rid of them except for a trojan that couldn't be removed because the dll was in use, but it said it would run Spybot when the computer restarts to get rid of it. I say ok and restart.
After restart, spybot starts to load. Before it finishes, explorer disappears and then comes but after a second, and spybot is no longer working. From then on, if I ever attempt to boot my computer, explorer constantly "blinks" in the same way and doesn't allow me to do anything. In safe mode, when it starts there is the usual notice that this is safe mode blah blah blah. I can stay in safe mode for a few seconds before explorer blinks in it too, only the notice pops up every time, which closes any kind of open program.


TLDR? Start reading here. I've had my computer (an emachines t5048 ) fail to start up before, and when I had the windows xp cd in I had an option of "Full system restore (with backup)" before windows boots. It essentially copies your harddrive into a recovery drive and then reinstalls windows. Thus in the new install C:\ is your "new" harddrive with windows and everything, and inside there is a folder called My Backup that has everything from the last installation. You still need to reinstall everything, but you have game saves, tax stuff, important files, whatever.

I started my computer with the xp cd in, and I can't find the screen/menu/option to do this anywhere. The Screen itself had a thing saying emachines up in the corner and I had the options of "full restore (destructive)" or "full restore (with backup)". The internet is no help, and emachines support is an outrageous sum of money with no guarantee that they can actually help me. Thus, I turn to you and various web-forums in desperation: Does anyone here know what I'm talking about and have any help on how to find this option or to do something similar, or to somehow fix my computer?


Edit: Oh yea, when in safemode if you hit No when the notice comes up in the begin, it's supposed to take you to system restore. When I try that, it says that sys. restore is turned off and can only be turned on in normal mode. I know this isn't true, since I had screwed something up ~two weeks ago and restored my computer to a day before and made a new restore point.

Using safe mode with the command window, I tried running system restore that way too. Again it said it was turned off.

[smee]

If your backing up your machine and then restoring it your more than likely coping the virus/trojan onto your new install.

Why cant you just do a complete clean restore

[com_kieffer]

If you have stuff you can't afford to lose when reformatting download a LiveCD. BAsically a live CD loads an OS into your PC's ram and allows you to run the computer like you normally would and save all the important stuff to an externanl hard drive.

The ubuntu live CD has a nice GUI if you want to go down that road.

[Antonious_Bloc]

If you have stuff you can't afford to lose when reformatting download a LiveCD. BAsically a live CD loads an OS into your PC's ram and allows you to run the computer like you normally would and save all the important stuff to an externanl hard drive.

The ubuntu live CD has a nice GUI if you want to go down that road.

On the other forum I posted at the live cd was also suggested. Would I be able to copy files to a couple of thumbdrives from the "fake" OS? And does it matter what live CD I use if I don't have to have it's OS installed?

The other thing that was mentioned were bootable security tools. I'm imagining an ugly version of Norton that runs before explorer actually loads up. Does anyone know anything about this?

@smee- I've got things like my resume, contact info, family photos, a bunch of downloaded music that I paid for, and save from Baldur's Gate 2 that is fairly close to the end with the same character I used to beat the first game. It would be a major annoyance for me to lose everything, though not really crippling. I'd just rather avoid it.

Thanks for the responses guys

[Antonious_Bloc]

I'm running from a livecd right now. If I dont post again, my problem is either fixed or I was just able to save my data. Thanks!

[MAINERROR]

You can save your data anyway but if you know which files are infected just delete them using the Live CD and your problem will be solved without XP reinstall.

[Robbi]

Well if you have done either of these things can you just post anyway please, cheers

[Jer {CY}]

When you get set up again I would recommend installing AVAST antivirus (It's free and works well!) as well as Malwarebytes anti-malware (Also free!).

IMHO these will serve you much better than just Spybot S&D when it comes to stopping things like this before they get out of hand.

GL!

[Robbi]

Well he didnt say it was spyware related. also Avast isnt to hot, if you want a good AV then pay for Kaspersky.