Scratch

Okay guys, here's an update: whatever was triggering Windows Defender to detect that my laptop is infected with Bredolab, it's now gone after a scan with Malwarebytes. So I really, really hope Bredolab has been otherwise eradicated.

But there's problems up ahead: the computer still can't read the pen drive (opr any pen drive for that matter. (@Distant Visit: there's no removable disk showing up in the My Computer folder)

And now I'm still coming up with the error:
      Retrieval of THotkey failed. Error code: 0×00031402, 0×00000002

[Mind you, this was coming up during the time I was still infected with Bredoloab, so I suspect Bredolab had something to do with this]. I saw a solution here, but because it requires changes to the registry, I'm, hesitant to try it out. Any other solutions? My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite.

stinks I don't know anything about computers 

You must throw the virus back into the laptop from whence it came.... [/lotr reference]

I have no idea how to fix these things so... I'm useless here 

Last edited by steppenwulf (2010-09-13 22:33:17)

Another thing to try...Plug in a pendrive, and open the boot menu when the computer boots up...you usually have to press esc,  F2, or F12 to do this; the key should be displayed onscreen for a few seconds with the manufacturer logo. Then check to see if your flash drive shows up. If it does, that's good news because the problem is strictly a Windows one.

EDIT: By the way, I once had a Toshiba Satellite that someone gave me. It gave me so much trouble that I just installed Ubuntu on it...now it works great 

EDIT AGAIN: Check this out: http://www.andybrain.com/qna/2007/12/05 … x00000002/

Last edited by fullmoon (2010-09-13 23:59:27)

Look for it in sytem 32: it should be found in there in the folder bredolab. there  is a copy of it in autorun, so delete both files.

Shoot out that portion of your hard drive... It wrks for me. 

Seriously, though... I really can't help you much... 

Do you have AVG? It's awesome and free. 

Ouch... >_< 

DistantVisit wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

iCode-747 wrote:

Shoot out that portion of your hard drive... It wrks for me. 

Seriously, though... I really can't help you much... 

Do you have AVG? It's awesome and free. 

I used to have AVG, but I found avast to be better.

Anyway... a sad end to my laptop's tale: whatever Bredolab did, it caused a lot of damage to my laptop from mesing around with my laptop to preventing my antivirus and antimalware software from updating.

To be honest, I was actually at the Bredolab thing for two days straight (all coffee, no sleep), and I really didn't want to do full recovery despite the damage it did. The best I could do at this point was a full system recovery to fix all the damage Bredolab had done, which pretty much erased everything. A least I'm thankful I still have most of the installers for my programs (particularly the ones for C++ and MATLAB, thank goodness), or can re-download them off the internet (save one of them, my beloved Finale Notepad 2008. I'll need to find another music writing software).

It's great you fixed the problem somewhat. The only problem with rolling back to a restore point using System Restore to recover from a virus is that basically when you restore it it deletes any recent data or programs in order to fix any software problems that are not virus related. Sadly, system restore does not edit the regristry so anything that Bredolab did might still be there from what my knowledge of computers tells me.

If you have a operating system restore disk that came with your laptop it would be best if you use it because what that disk would do is reset the computer to the original factory settings and operating system so that your thumb drive will once again work, and BredoLab will be completely gone.

Don't worry virus's aren't much of a hassle unless you have important documents you would like to save. I fix computers for a living so I know this first hand. 

*reads through her original post*
Whoops, I mean to say I did a "full recovery" for my laptop, not "system recovery" (I was forced to use the recovery CD). Bredolab did so much damage I was forced to set the computer back to factory settings.

I have most of the programs I installed earlier, except for a few. And thank goodness I made backup files of my homework in other places otherwise I would have freaked out once those files were gone (praise Google Docs).

DistantVisit wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

DistantVisit wrote:

It's great you fixed the problem somewhat. The only problem with rolling back to a restore point using System Restore to recover from a virus is that basically when you restore it it deletes any recent data or programs in order to fix any software problems that are not virus related. Sadly, system restore does not edit the regristry so anything that Bredolab did might still be there from what my knowledge of computers tells me.

If you have a operating system restore disk that came with your laptop it would be best if you use it because what that disk would do is reset the computer to the original factory settings and operating system so that your thumb drive will once again work, and BredoLab will be completely gone.

Don't worry virus's aren't much of a hassle unless you have important documents you would like to save. I fix computers for a living so I know this first hand. 

*reads through her original post*
Whoops, I mean to say I did a "full recovery" for my laptop, not "system recovery" (I was forced to use the recovery CD). Bredolab did so much damage I was forced to set the computer back to factory settings.

I have most of the programs I installed earlier, except for a few. And thank goodness I made backup files of my homework in other places otherwise I would have freaked out once those files were gone (praise Google Docs).

I was a bit worried about you, so it's great that I now know that what you originally said was a typo (as I thought). Well, good luck with your fresh install with your computer. I personnally don't have any antivirus but, it's good if normal computer users have one because it proctects you from some common virus's. Avast is good, but there are some free ones that are a bit better. Maybe you can even try to install linux (such as Ubuntu) because it's immune to common Windows virus's since it's built on a diferent platform (Unix). The problem with Ubuntu most of the time is compatibility but if you know how to use WINE correctly you can easily make productivity software such as Microsoft Office work fine under Ubuntu.

Anyway, whatever you plan to do with your computer from here on out...Good luck! 

Thanks. I've thought about maybe using Linux with WINE (although I'm rather hesitant to do so right now only because so many of my programs are Windows-based, perhaps sometime in the future when I don't have to worry so much about being so heavily dependent on them for projects should I can't get WINE to work correctly for some reason or another).

You said that there were some antivirus software that were better than avast. What would you suggest?

demosthenes wrote:

Despite your hang-ups about switching to Linux I would highly recommend. If you still want to be able to use files not compatible with WINE, you can always try partitioning your hard drive and keeping your Windows installation. On one of the house computers we are running Linux and I find it much better than Windows and Mac OS X.


EDIT: I'm also very sorry to hear about the amount of damage you suffered because of this virus 

Hmm, "partitioning the hard drive".... well that sounds like an interesting idea. 

I think, for now, though, I'll just stick with my WindowsXP only because I'm just rather hesitant to change anything at this point (at least, perhaps, until the school year ends; a lot of the work that I do is just much too dependent on my laptop and I don't want to muck around with anything just yet).

PW132 wrote:

Use oompa loompas.

My trolls work better than oompa loompas. NINJA'D

rufflebee wrote:

steppenwulf wrote:

PW132 wrote:

Use oompa loompas.

My trolls work better than oompa loompas. NINJA'D

Definitely. >:) DOUBLE NINJA'D

Oh, and sorry cheddar, can't you restore your computer to how it was, say, two weeks ago? I dunno, I don't know much about computers and such.

Yeah, normally I could do that with system restore, but Bredolab had embedded itself pretty deep that System Restore had to be disabled to kill it.

I got most of my programs back, though, and I found a nice new software that will replace the Finale Notepad that I lost during the full recovery process.