multiple "bad image" errors at startup - MALWARE?

[Chuckster]

using windows xp media and mozilla firefox.  have norton antivirus, use zonealarm and ad-aware.  about 2 weeks ago, wife accidentally allowed some crap  to get in (Personal Antivirus was the name - it looked like AV program, so she clicked OK).  with my limited skills, i made it go away.  probably not permanently, but appeared to be gone.
well, today we had several porn icons pop up on wife and my desktops, and a splash screen popping up continuously looking like windows protection center screen.  could not turn it off for longer than 5 or 10 seconds.  had to explore/search, found a couple of folders where it was hiding (was called Protection System, had an exe file "wscsvc.exe" that was primary culprit, as far as i could tell), changed file extensions by adding an alpha, and was finally able to get it to stop.  had difficulty running norton anti-virus, when i finally did get it to run, it found a couple of viruses, said it cleaned them, then said i needed to restart.  upon restart, and ever since then, i get continuous "..... - BAD IMAGE" alerts, saying "....not a valid windows image, check installation diskette".  apart from that, the programs appear to work fine, after clicking on "OK"
i have a cold/sore throat, and this is upsetting me.  have a gazillion pics of kids on drive, which aren't backed up (I KNOW, I'M Stupid and/or lazy), but now i'm in trouble.  i have downloaded Hijack this program, although am scared to use it.
PLEASE HELP, SUPERMAN.

[harry 48]

http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php/topic,46313.0.html

go to above and complete , post the 3 logs HERE and they will be looked at

[Chuckster]

10-4.  will do so once i get back home (either late this evening or tomorrow).  thank you...

[Chuckster]

just a quick update harry (i haven't forgot or ignored this...)

will post logs probably later this week or weekend when i get a chance - work dominating a lot of my time at moment, resulting in difficulty finding spare time once i get home to get it done.  fyi

update in interim - pc doing much better.  bad image errors have ceased - i told wife that although pc was sick, it was still functional (although constant errors a nuisance, so just ignore them) if she needed to absolutely get on to check something or email, especially since it would be a little bit before i could get things sorted out - well about the third time she fired it up, she got a pop up box at startup from norton saying virus was removed.  bad images have ceased so far since then.
when i got home, i re-ran full scan (ad-aware from lavasoft) and also norton full scan, and both hit on items, and were subsequently quarrantined.  followed that with basic disk cleanup and defrag, so pc is acting a lot better.
but i suspect there are still remnants - so although outwardly it looks better, i would still like to have you look at it once i get the logs posted.  i imagine you are probably quite busy yourself, so i just wanted to let you know that i'm not in dire straits, and consequently, not in panic mode, needing high priority assistance (i would think there are others in worse shape than me), but would still like an assessment once i get logs posted.
i guess i'm trying to say, thank you, and i would still like help, but i didn't want to come across as me-me-me and demand/dominate time and resources, when others i'm sure need it worse than me right now.  so, if you can put me down a few pegs on the to-do list, as a result of the improvement of my situation, but please don't forget about me, i'll get the logs posted.
krikey!  another long winded explanation to say i haven't got the logs posted yet!  sorry!  i'll get them done...

[harry 48]

ok , if you post them a malware expert may be looking at them , harry