Very slow computer

[amforensics]

Hello,

I have an Acer laptop. All of a sudden is operating very very slow. The current antivirus software is not opening and cant even uninstall. i tried installing another antivirus software in safe mode but to no avail. i tried restoring and refreshing the system but its asking for a recovery media to continue of which i dont have at the moment..its very frustrating because i want to do a clean install of another software however the cd drive is not reading the software. Please tell me what to do to save this computer.

I strongly believe its a malware attack. Even Malwarebytes didnt do the job of cleaning the computer.

Thank you

 

[jr9]

- Malware can attack an antivirus and stop it from working, sometimes even in safe mode.
- Some software won't install properly in safe mode.
- Most deep malware infections can completely uproot and disable Malwarebytes.

I would use:

Another PC, a flash drive big enough, Rufus USB boot drive maker, an ISO file of Hiren's boot CD; create a bootable USB drive to use

Plug the drive into the laptop and try to boot from the drive. If it goes straight to Windows, reset it and access the BIOS settings and configure it to boot to the USB drive first or just select it directly if your BIOS supports it.

If you get to the Hiren's boot menu, I would then boot "Mini XP" which would give me a place to work and it contains many tools including Malwarebytes. Start Malwarebytes within Mini XP and first update the definitions then scan everything as deeply as possible. Reboot and repeat this to make sure there is nothing left (note you will have to re update the definitions, they tend to not stick), then shutdown and remove the flash drive and boot into Windows and see if things are better. If not, try another Antivirus tool in Hiren's.

There are other bootable Antivirus tools as well like Bitdefender rescue.

If malware remediation doesn't help, your only option is to clean install the OS. This will also solve the problem if the issue wasn't even malware.