Scanning For Virus In Safe Mode

[master_bacarra 0]

is it better to scan your system in safe mode? i've been having virus problems recently and i really need to scan my system, but whenever i try to do it, the system hangs because of the virus (or at least that's what i think is happening). at first i assumed it was hardware problems, but i checked it and i didn't find any problem. i recently tried scanning in safe mode, but after i switched back to normal mode, it seemed as if the scanning didn't help at all. or maybe it worked, that i just didn't notice it.

Edited August 21, 2006 by BuffaloHELP (see edit history)

[drk002 0]

You must scan in the normal mode. (Not in SAFE mode)Many driver and programs which are supposed to run in background are not allowed to run in SAFE mode.And often the virus affected files are not detected as virus affected unless they ae running.So go and scan in normal mode and see the results.

[master_bacarra 0]

well, that would be a bummer. like what i've said, whenever i do scans, i usually end up having the system hang during the middle or probably at the end of the scan. now i'm thinking of considering reformatting the pc and doing a clean install of windows xp.

[FirefoxRocks 0]

It would help if you told us what anti-virus software you are using. <_<If your system does scan properly in Normal mode, try the following steps:1. Safe mode, scan and remove all viruses.2. Spyware scans in Normal mode. Remove detected spyware.3. Make sure you have 3-6 anti-spyware applications on your computer.4. If none of that helped, go to Start > Run > "msconfig".5. Click the Startup tab and disable all startup programs.6. Reboot into Normal mode.7. Run scans again.8. If everything works fine, enable startup programs that you need in the System Configuration Utility. If things don't work correctly, try uninstalling very non-essential programs.9. If all else fails, do a QuickRestore on a HP computer or a Dell Restore on a Dell computer. Reinstall your operating system.Hope that helped.

[TypoMage 0]

Hmmm did you recently add a program? If you did you should go in safe mode and delete it. One time I got the Photoshop free trial and my pc got all messed up but I am used to it. Pm me if you need anymore help.

[master_bacarra 0]

i'm using 4 scanners. avg free, ad-aware, spybot s&d, and ewido antispyware. the system hangs in at least one of them (while scanning). usually i start with avg so whenever the system hangs, i end up not scanning the system anymore, since scanning my system in avg will take me up to 2 and a half hours (just on avg alone).