DOS AGOBOT. HM non cleanable

After following the instructions in this thread
http://forums.techguy.org/t220791.html and finally finding and deleting netscvs.exe then running housecall.microtrend.com the scan came up with DOS_AGOBOT.HM non cleanable. Houscall says it's an infected file in
C:Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

Anyone have a suggestion to get rid of this? Is this what is preventing the symantec sites from coming up? Norton cannot run live update because it cannot connect to symantec and I cannot bring symatec up either, not by typing it in nor by clicking on links provided by google (or any other search engine). Nothing symantec will come up. I can access the rest of the internet fine.

Windows XP home, all critical updates are current.

 

Try rebooting into safe mode Melodi and navigate to that folder through windows explorer then delete the entire contents of the hosts file.

 

There is hosts and Imhosts. Delete all or just hosts?

 

Melodi,

I got your PM. What OS is the machine running? We can just replace the host file with a new one, but I need to know the OS to get the right one.

 

Oh crumbs. I just deleted it, the hosts one. It's windows xp home

 

That's OK. Replace it with this one:

http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/Downloads/hosts127001.zip

I don't know what I was thinking this hosts file will work on all Windows versions! DUHH!

 

Thanks guys, it's able to access symantec once again. I have a few questions (as I always do) Is that the sole purpose of that virus to keep people out of symantec? How does one prevent reinfection (it's not my pc, so I want to maybe explain to the owner how to prevent it) and prior to housecall, I ran Panda and that didn't pick anything up, it said it was virus free. If I had not run housecall, I don't think I would have found it. Thanks again!!

Floorman your link worked great and um...it's hard for me to remember yesterday much less what host file will work where and when , so I would say you are doing pretty good

 

Keep up to date on the virus definitions. Do regular full sytem virus scans.

Also I highly recommend that you go to Windows update and install all "Critical Updates and Service Packs". This will patch numerous security holes in IE and Windows.

 

fix these

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar = http://srch-us4.hpwis.com/
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://us4.hpwis.com/
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://us4.hpwis.com/
R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://srch-us4.hpwis.com/
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://us4.hpwis.com/
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Bar = http://srch-us4.hpwis.com/