Virus, can't boot, stuck in cyberlimbo

Hi,

Competent using computers to the most basic of levels, but rapidly spiralling down a road to doom, so would be ever so grateful for some expert help.

Lack of specific information is for a reason - please read to end before raising questions!

Noticed AVG wasn't running yesterday, so went to click on icon and got a message along the lines of "invalid.exe file". Uninstalled AVG and tried to reinstall, but kepy getting the same message. copied and pasted the message into google, and it linked the message with a trojan horse, and mentioned the name "downloader.generic7".

I followed the AVG guidance and downloaded Cwshredder, spybot s&d, ad-aware, rogue remover, avg anti spyware and anti virus. I was going to install them in safe mode in case the presence of a virus affected their installation.

When I tried to start in safe mode (via F8 ), the computer kept resetting and going to the "We apologise for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully…" screen. I started in normal mode, went to msconfig, and selected safe mode. Now, the computer will not start in any of "Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, Safe Mode with Command Prompt, Last known good Configuration, or Start Normally". Keeps resetting, and going to the "We apologise for the inconvenience, but windows did not start successfully…" screen. F8 brings up a wider range of options, but I wouldn't have a clue where to start.

So, I'm sort of completely stuck, and I can't access the information asked to post, because I can't even boot my PC. What I CAN tell you is that I'm running XP, was running AVG 7.5 (uninstalled, can’t re-install), and Windows Firewall.

Can anyone please tell me where to get started (a) to boot, and (b) to clear whatever the virus is? If I could even boot in safe mode and install the software, I could follow the advice from the AVG pages...

Many thanks for your time.

That was a mistake. These infections disable safe mode.

...it is possible to fix this problem by renaming your boot.ini file. The first step would be to use a BOOT DISK to start your computer. If your computer does not have a floppy disk, then you can typically boot off the Windows CD that came with your computer in order to access the Windows Recovery Console. More information about the Windows Recovery Console can be found HERE . More information about the Windows Recovery Console can be found here. Once booted to a command prompt, you would simply rename your C:\Boot.ini file to another name like C:\Boot.ini.bak. The command to rename the file at the command prompt is:

ren C:\Boot.ini Boot.ini.bak

Once the file is renamed, you can then remove the boot disk and reboot your computer to get back to normal mode. When booting up after the rename, do not be surprised if you see an error stating that you do not have a valid Boot.ini file. When you get back to normal Windows mode, you can then rename C:\Boot.ini.bak to C:\Boot.ini file and run Msconfig again to remove the /safeboot flag.

I agree with the above quote.

Do you need virus removal help????