Internet Explorer chooses which page it opens

[emtboy1999]

I have been having this problem for about 2 weeks now.  Ever since my modem quit working and I had to have a technician from our ISP come and fix it my Internet Explorer won't open certain pages.  It won't open www.msn.com and I know that it works because I can connect my laptop to my router and it opens them just fine. 

Its just my home PC that is having this problem.  It won't open websites like www.msn.com and www.staceypeters.unfranchise.com. 

I have Norton Anti-virus and I run IE ver 6.0 on windows XP.  I have a linksys B 2.4 GHZ router.  Please help as it is becoming very frustrating.

Thank you!

[Gadget]

Have you tried clearing your internet cache files?  have you done a spyware scan with ad aware? try downloading firefox and see if it will allow you to go to msn.com.

[emtboy1999]

Yes to all of your questions.  I have downloaded firefox and it doesn't work with the above mentioned websites either.  Also I have ran a full scan with norton's and it fixed any problems and if i run a new scan it finds no errors. 

This normally wouldn't be an issue but one of the pages it can't load is my online school page for college and it's going to be really tough to go to college if i can't access my information.  Any related help would be greatly appreciated.

[WillyW]

This might be off the wall,  but I have to ask:    do you have a     hosts    file?

Could somebody have edited it and be pulling a joke on you?

Check out:
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/what_is_hosts.html

"if you put ad server names into your Hosts file with your own computer's IP address, your computer will never be able to contact the ad server. It will try to, but it will be simply calling itself and get a "busy signal" of sorts. Your computer will then give up calling the ad server and no ads will be loaded, nor will any tracking take place. Your choices for blocking sites are not just limited to blocking ad servers. You may block sites that serve advertisements, sites that serve objectionable content, or any other site that you choose to block. "


Just for fun,  use the search function to search all your hard drives for
files containing        hosts           in the filename.

Look inside any found with notepad.     Find anything suspicious?

[emtboy1999]

Okay,  I did as you said and searched for "hosts" and found nothing.  So I went to the location on my hard drive provided by the web site you gave me.  Found the hosts file and it didn't have any of the web addresses that I could not access in it. 

I don't know where else to look?  Is there a setting on my computer that needs to be adjusted.  I only have 5 days before classes start.  THanks a ton for you help!

[DeltaSlaya]

I don't know if it will come up but you could try posting a HiJackthis log, there maybe something in there that needs cleaning out. (Google Hijackthis).