I Have The Google Redirect Virus

[GENERAL RAAM582]

My father's Windows XP PC appears to be infected with some type of Google Redirect Virus. I've tried many, many, many scanners. Half of them didn't find the virus, those that did, supposedly deleted it. On Wednesday night I used ESET and it found it, deleted it, and it actually worked. I wasn't getting redirected anymore. However, when I used my PC the next day, it was back! I tried looking at my Host file or whatever, and it's not there. I looked in device management to find TDSS and I couldn't. I have no idea what to do. I've used Avast, AVG, Microsoft Scanner, Norton Scanner, Mcafee Stinger, CCleaner, ESET, Norton Power Erase, SpyHunter, Hitman Pro 3.0, and TDSSKiller. Most of these didn't even find it, those that did, said it was deleted but it soon returned. I'm getting extremely frustrated with this virus!

Norton will do a tech support thing where you pay $100 and they will get rid of it themselves. Is my father gonna have to fork over $100?

 

[RetrogradeOrbit]

These can be very hard to get rid of...

My suggestion would be to back up the personal data, such as images and documents to an external hard drive.
Then use the system restore disks to put the computer back to how it was when it was originally taken out of the box. The hard drive is reformatted during the process and so whatever nasties are on there will be toast!

Granted, you wil have to reinstall all extra software that has been installed since, but as long as you have all the necessary disks, it is just a matter of the time to do it.

 

[RetrogradeOrbit]

If you want to continue to try to remover the infection try the spyware scanner from http://www.malwarebytes.org/

They do a free and paid for version. I also recommend running Ccleaner beforehand to clear out as much junk as possible before running a full malware scan. This can be downloaded from http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

Make sure you run both of these programs in "Safe Mode" as the infection is most likely not going to be active in this mode.

To access Safe Mode, hit F8 repeatedly when you turn on the PC, until you see a boot options screen, one option will say "Safe Mode" use the arrow keys to highlight the selection and press enter to boot your computer with a minimal set of drivers.