Multiple Trojan/Virus Problem

Don't know where else to put this. Trying to rescue my in-laws Dell Optiplex 745, winxp pro. They were running a Norton program from 2002! I get there and the monitor is just flashing. Virus, trojan, adware, etc. I uninstall Norton put on AVG and A2. Come back with multiple trojans and viruses. Try to heal or quarantine on both programs and restart the system.

System comes back up: Internet Explorer is gone completely, can't connect to Firefox, can't drag and drop with the mouse --- won't let me troubleshoot or check mouse properties --- system freezes up. They were using DSL, can't get a connection at all. Thought I could put important files on to an external hard drive and then use the restore disc to reinstall everything, but won't recognize the hard drive and can't use windows explorer to drag and drop to save on disc. Also tried a direct system restore using the installed program, get error that says "system restore is not able to protect your computer, please restart machine and try again." No such luck there either.

Major problem here?

P.S. They did not have Hijack This or CW shredder or anything like that to check logs. Is there a way to get some control back through registry manipulation?

Please advise, anybody.

Thanks in advance.

Peace

Prophet

 

Thanks for the links Ron. Appreciate the help.