Newbie computer faults

My operating system XP home, the problems I am having are when I boot the system often goes so far then cuts out and re-boots, when it eventually does boot, the light on the CD/DVD-RW lights up and then goes out like it should. But, when I go to play a CD or DVD, it does not work. The name of the CD is not recognised on the icon in 'my computer', the other problems I am experiencing are: I did a virus scan and a spyware scan, which found numerous cookies, trojans and a worm, which hopefully has sorted them out. But my computer seems extremely slow. PLEASE ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!!

 

Just because your scans have detected all this malware by no means implies that that malware has been removed.

In my experience, systems with bad "infections" cannot be cured by running anti-malware apps after Windows has booted.

I would first boot into Safe Mode and try and run your anti-spyware scans as they might prove more successful. But I would still be doubtful that that would disenfect your PC.

It's been my experience (and that of my workplace's SysAdmin) that the only way to disenfect a badly infected drive is to slave the infected drive in another system and boot from an anti-malware CD to disinfect the drive. He says that Windows Defender will blast anything that even remotely smells like malware.

A more drastic but highly effective approach would be to simply re-format your drive, i.e. completely wipe it out.

I'm sure you'll get some more replies on this so be sure an wait to see what the more malware-savvy have to say.

 

O.K.
Thanks il wait and see if i get more replies as unless i have to i dont really want to format my drive.