Hi, this is my first post. Hope I am doing this correctly.
Current situation- When I try to turn on my laptop (Windows XP SP3), I get 2 options- one for Microsoft Recovery Console and another for regular Windows login. When I don't select the Recovery Console within a few seconds, it proceeds to run the regular mode but never gets to the Windows login screen. The screen stays blank and I can see the mouse pointer on it.
Earlier- This is the first time I had a malware infection. I had something that is being called a 'Google Redirect Virus'. I was getting correct search results in google but when I clicked on them, every once in a while, it would redirect to an unexpected site. After reading a little bit (this is where I made the mistake), I ran combofix as I was very anxious.....only later did I realize I should have sought supervision. During running combofix, Microsoft recovery Console was installed. However, the combofix initiated restart was not successful and stopped at the blank screen.
One additional note- I am not absolutely certain about this but I think I saw an svchost.exe related message from combofix when it was running...not sure if it was saying that it was deleting that file.
Many thanks to anyone who takes out the time to help.