Problems With Laptop - Any Ideas Please?

[daisya]

Hope someone will be able to help me please. My laptop has problems, was okay yesterday afternoon then when I switched it on last night a message in “DOS” said it couldn’t start windows as there was something wrong (or words to that effect) it then started up in safe mode and let me sign in.

I then rec’d a message in windows saying that my antispyware was switched off and my computer was at risk. Details of my system are as follows: OS is Win 7 home edition and AV is Norton’s.

I thought I would try and run a scan offline but it came up with error 3047, 40000 then when I tried again error 3047, 53 An Action Centre notice came up about running a program and do I trust this site which was Symantec and it wanted to run C:\Program Files (x86)Norton Internet Security\Engine\19.9.0.9\ WSCStub.exe I didn’t know what this was so shut that box down. Also another box Antispyware options were - Turn off Windows Defender – Turn on and Update Norton’s Internet Security – get different spyware program. But I shut that down to let Nortons do a fix.

Well Norton’s was trying to do updates but I was offline, switched online and saw that it wanted to download updates to fix error which came to about 104megabytes (never seen this before) and was taking ages to do whilst the laptop wasn’t protected so I shut that down and tried to scan again but it came up with error trying to fix. I tried to scan again with Norton's but it said error scanning.

I then decided to run Malwarebytes (off line) but notice came up saying “data base is missing or corrupt, download another Malwarebytes”. I thought I’d reboot to see if things would improve but there was one windows update waiting to be installed on closure which normally there isn’t and I knew there were a lot of updates to be done when I got round to it…so why just the one? I then let it do it, started the laptop up again but Norton’s wouldn’t be fixed.

Do I have a virus on the laptop do you think and if so, how on earth does a non-techy person deal with it or whatever is wrong with it…argh? I would very much appreciate some non techy language help please as I can’t use the lappy now until it gets sorted. I looked at last restore point and it was automatically done mid December, nothing since…and I don’t know how to work that on Win 7 anyway.

Many thanks for reading, sorry for long post but trying to give as much info as possible.

[pinkyboyid]

You could possibly have a corrupt file system. To check / eliminate this first thing I would do is run a CHKDSK program.

Startup into Safe mode (Press F8 repeatedly at power on time) and do the following:

- Windows Start>All Programs>Accessories
- Right Click on 'Command Prompt'
- Select 'Run as Administrator'
- In the 'black box' 'Command Prompt' window that opens up, type the text
CHKDSK /F and then press the enter/return key on the keyboard
- Answer Y to the question that will appear, i.e. press the Y key on keyboard follow by press enter/return key
- Restart your system
- As the system starts up it will automatically perform a check of your Disk system and attempt a repair of any potential errors it finds
- Let the process run / finish and the system will then start up as normal

The next thing I would try is to remove the anti-virus program which may be corrupt. Again, start into Safe mode and carry out an uninstall via Windows Start>Control Panel>Programs>Uninstall Program.

If the system then starts up ok and seems stable, reinstall an anti-virus program. I would suggest installing the the Microsoft Security Essentials package.

[daisya]

Thanks for that pinky, is it possible to do chkdsk without going into safe mode? I am not quite sure about it me being computer terrified lol I may have to pay for an expert to do it to save all the stress especially if questions pop up that I can't answer...eek.

[pinkyboyid]

If you can still manage to startup and login to Windows as normal, you could then carry out the instructions to run the chkdsk program from there. In that case you would not need to enter Safe Mode.

Just give it a go, it should be ok. If you make a mistake with the instructions dont worry, it should not 'hurt' anything and you can always try again from the start.

The next stage, if the problem persists, is to look at possibly uninstalling the Norton package followed by reinstall of Microsoft Security Essentials. Let me know and will try to assist with some instructions if you need them.

[daisya]

I managed to log in to windows eventually with no problem, Norton's still coming up with at risk and wouldn't do updates. Fiddling with buttons n things on there I managed to get it to update after a while but SONAR thingy was off so not protected. Eventually after doing lots of updates even though it said all done, one final time there was an update again and I did that and it worked. I did a scan off line, said it found nothing (wouldn't let me scan before). I downloaded new malwarebytes and scanned with that and nothing found. So far so good, Norton's secure now and fingers crossed with no problem booting up which I've done a few times. Hopefully it's sorted out the problem, may take it to John Lewis for a computer check etc..just to give it clean bill of health (hopefully lol). Thank you pinky for your help.