Almost impossible to back up the thing. It's possessed; can't see anything I put into the USB ports (e.g. microSD reader, normal SD reader, HDD MP3 player); it's branding them "unknown devices" (they're all plug and play and have been used recently on the same PC) and when I tried to write things onto a DVD it just stuck and the drive "door" wouldn't even open!
I have managed to back up the most critical files onto my EEE through BadBlue, but it's still a lot of stuff in that disk...
I will get spybot to see what it comes up with.

Run both Spybot and Adaware -- the combination of the two will catch a lot. Also, make sure you run them from "safe" mode.

currently running spybot...it sure isn't very quick!
As said above, I ran adaware yesterday, could only find tracking cookies and no critical objects.

Did you try disabling your plug-ins one at a time, or disabling all of them, then re-enabling them one at a time?

-David

Yeah, Spybot is slow.

Another thing to try: Somewhere on the Microsoft website is a program that checks for root kits. I don't remember the name, but I found it with a Google search for "root kit removal" or something similar. It's a Microsoft-written program and a free download from Microsoft. It's output is fairly technical, but by looking at the registry hooks that it reports and then running Google searches to identify the items listed, you can easily figure out which belong and which don't. Then you can go in and edit the registry to remove the malicious hooks. Warning: registry editing is not for the faint-of-heart. I did this successfully once when my XP-based desktop somehow picked up a root kit. However, it is an absolute last resort as manually cleaning the registry can easily render the OS completely inoperable.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb897445.aspx

Apparently, spybot did find something that supposedly was messing my registry up (no other critical objects or anything else apart from cookies).
Rebooted and it was still a massive pain to make the bloody thing start.
I was, however, able to write all documents and media files onto DVDs, so I guess the worst thing that can now happen is I have to buy a new HDD (well, or PC, but I'd rather not!).
Will try the rootkit revealer to see whether I can sort anything out.

For the third time, did you try disabling all browser plug-ins? For IE, spybot will list BHOs in one of it's screens, which are similar to firefox add-ons. In FF, you can disable plug-ins from tools/add-ons.

-David

Oh cheers for that. I was so engrossed with the rest of the stuff (basically saving my data) that I totally overlooked it
It seems like the browsers are working more or less ok now....but the general system is as screwed up as ever (at least as far as booting is concerned).


my Firefox add-ons are as follows:
....... Plus
Download Statusbar
Forecastfox (for weather forecasts)

Do you reckon it's worth disabling them?

If you are having problems with browser startup/shutdown, that's where I would start. I have a few, but I don't use any of the ones you mentioned. (I have Roboform, Fasterfox, flashblock and linkification).

The other things to look at are all the startup programs you might be running and don't necessarily need. Also look at all the services you are running to figure out if you really need them or not. Many can be disabled, and some can be set to Manual instead of Automatic startup.

Startup program info: http://www.sysinfo.org/startupinfo.html

Services info: http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/supertweaks.htm

You might also want to check out ccleaner. It has an option to remove old crud that isn't there anymore from your registry and also some other useful stuff like deleting temp files: www.ccleaner.com

It's always a good idea to have a working backup before messing with any of this stuff, just in case.

-David

Do you have the XP disk? You might try a repair installation.

This is a friendlier rootkit program:

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-rootkit/

You also might try a repair of AVG anti-virus just in case.