I posted already in the wrong section, sorry. Last week my Windows Vista (Home Premiun OEM) suddenly decide it was fake, and ordered me to authenticate. However, the necessary ID numbers were missing and after long discussions with MIcrosoft I gathered that something weird was going on. I then noticed that system restore and chdsk were both disabled. I could not run a windows reinstall or format the disk with dban as neither could find the c drive. Norton anti-virus refused to scan and then after a few days refused to update and then began to say the computer was at risk. I was also reciving a strange Windows error "The number of secrets in that may be stored in a single system has been exceeded" every time I tried to introduce the serial number into windows. I tried all the scanners and anti malwares I could find but nothing worked. Finally I tried Combofix (I know it's supposed to be dangerous but I was desperate) and it found rootkits (the name was long string of seemingly random characters beginning ovg....) and deleted them. Immediately, the machine went back to normal, windows authenticated and norton started working again. Unfortunately a few hours later the same Windows message appeared and windows is invalid again etc. I have checked the drive with WD tools, my Windows is authentic and I'm getting fairly desperate to fix this as I use my computer for a lot of things and I can't really send files or check private data knowing that the machine is infected.
Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks
Jon.
Edited by Jon27, 21 April 2009 - 01:11 PM.