Windows Defender Error

[leeelson]

edit

Try running a scan with the following scanners. They are on-demand scanners. If possible, d/l these on a clean machine to minimize the possibility of corruption.

If you made your copy of WDO on the infected machine, it's a possibility the anti-virus definitions were compromised.

First, run rkill

Do NOT reboot after running it. Then run the following scanners.

Malwarebytes (The free version is good, you can upgrade later if you choose) Do a full system scan. If it finds anything, check the boxes of the items found & quarantine them.

TDSSKiller. This will scan for rootkits.

Norton Power Eraser.

Because Norton Power Eraser uses aggressive methods to detect threats, there is a risk that it can select some legitimate programs for removal. If you accidently remove a legitimate program, you can run Norton Power Eraser to review past repair sessions and undo them.

Please post the results of these scans

rkill, Malwarebytes and TDSSKiller all came up clean. When I ran Norton Power Eraser. it immediately rebooted the machine,
putting it into an infinite loop: "Preparing automatic repair" followed by "diagnosing your PC" and then "PC did not start". None of the choices allow me to boot into anything: no windows but I can get a command prompt. I'm dead in the water at this point. Suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Borg 386]

I've never seen NPR have that kind of problem on any of the other machines I've used it on. It rebooted because it was doing a Rootkit scan. But you did mention you also had some problems with WDO. At this point you should probably do a Refresh as Brink suggested or a Repair install.

You can also try running a SFC to see if that will set things in order. You should run SFC at least 3X since it doesn't always fix all problems the 1st or 2nd time around.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2302-reset-windows-8-a.html?ltr=R

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/3047-sfc-scannow-command-run-windows-8-a.html

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/26095-repair-install-windows-8-a.html