Monday, February 05, 2018

Antiquary8 ... Come back

Previously


Antiquary8 said HERE

Hi Roger,

My main (Win 10) computer locked up big-time on Saturday. The frozen screen turned to black, and numerous reboots had no effect. It turned out that Malwarebytes Pro (a third-party
anti-malware program) had a bad automatic update that hosed thousands of computers. 

The solution was to remove Malwarebytes and install their new version.

I've use Malwarebytes for many years, and this is their first "glitch", although it was a doozey.

Ed

I just stumbled over this comment by "Ed." Whoa.  That does sound like something that may have happened, but my question is ... How do I  remove Malware after the disk is trashed? 

8 comments:

leelu said...

Make a recovery disk & boot from that.

Rodger the Real King of France said...

Make a recovery disk of ... what?

Skoonj said...

I had a recent problem with Malwarebytes as well. My W10 laptop was starting to have problems that looked like a virus. Fortunately, I have a subscription to a computer help service through Century Link. It costs me $10 a month. I have Century Link phone, internet, and Prism TV. Via phone and software, they actually climb into my computer and do whatever repair is necessary. I talked to someone for a while to identify me and narrow down the problem. Then a tech talked to me in a message box. After that it gets hazy because my computer was shut down (by him). Since they sometimes restart the computer I left it alone for more than an hour before I started it again. When it came up, the problem was solved. The tech was nowhere to be found.

I don't have computer problems every month, but when I do have them it's good to know they can be fixed even when I can't figure it out.

Eskyman said...

Rodger, you're supposed to make a "recovery" disk when you first get your new computer & everything is working properly. Then you use it when all else fails, to get booted up & hopefully fix the problem.

Can you boot into Safe Mode? You might be able to uninstall MalwareBytes that way. Here's a link on how to enter Safe Mode: http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-3106182/start-windows-safe-mode.html

(I had no luck entering Safe Mode on my old HP laptop running Win10, and like you I didn't have a recovery disk. Now my old laptop still has Win10 but no drivers & isn't usable. I hope you have better luck!)

Antiquary8 said...

Hi, Roger

After my machine locked up, I forced a shutdown by holding the power
button down until it shut off. I restarted the computer,
and hit the "windows symbol and R" keys of the keyboard (to open the Run command line).

Type msconfig in the Run line.
Select 'Boot' tab
Click 'Safe Boot' 'Minimal'

Restart the computer normally.
The display should say 'safe mode' in the corners of the display.
Remove Malewrebytes normally via Control Panel Programs and Features


If your machine is so hosed that you can't do this successfully,
hit control-alt-delete Task Manager More Details Processes Tab
highlight 'Malwarebytes tray application' hit 'End Task' button on lower right

You should then be able to remove Malwarebytes normally, using the control panel
'Programams and Features'.

As someone else pointed out, if you have installation media (DVD or thumb drive)
with Windows on it, you can boot from that. You just have to be careful that you don't
tell it to reinstall Windows. Once the DVD or thumb drive Windows is running,
you can then delete Malwarebytes files from the c: drive using Windows Explorer.
It is found at c:\Program Files\Malwarebytes\Anti-Malware\.
Then remove the DVD or thumb drive and reboot normally.

Good luck, Roger! i'll keep my fingers crossed.

Ed

Antiquary8 said...

Hi, Roger

Further to my comment, you may also need to stop the 'Malewarebytes Service' process
using the Task Manager.

I was thinking that you may be able to plug in the hosed c: drive into another
Windows computer as a second hard drive. Then use Windows Explorer to delete
the Malewarebytes program files from the new drive (perhaps labeled D:).
I'm hazy about this, because your new computer surely runs on a 64 bit basis,
and I'm not sure the older machine can read a drive set up for that.

Ed

Antiquary8 said...

ATTN: SKOONJ -

re: Your HP laptop with Win 10 installed but no required drivers -
I had a similar situation several years ago with a Lenovo laptop,
and had functionality restored using "PC Wizard."
PC Wizard is a "live Linux" boot disk that is set up to search your computer hardware
to match it with Windows drivers.

You can buy it on eBay for $9 shipped. Certainly worth a shot.
Ed.

Skoonj said...

Antiquary8, I'll investigate. Thank you.

Post a Comment

Just type your name and post as anonymous if you don't have a Blogger profile.