Dude from Beverly Hills writes:

Dear Geekchick,

My computer is crazy infected. It keeps telling me that if i pay it that it will fix itself? Should I trust it? i have the original Webroot Spy Sweeper and Norton AntiVirus i am re-installing.  What do you think?

Signed,
Dude in Beverly Hills

Dear Dude,

I think bummer, man. No, don't trust that shit. If you want to waste your money, just send it to me. Norton's and Webroot didn't protect you before you were infected, I promise they won't help you now. And as far as paying a virus to clean itself, well, good for you for not falling for that :)

Here's a tech-secret: If the machine is infected, you usually can't clean it from within the OS. It's like doing surgery on yourself... brain surgery... at some point the thing that's wrong makes itself abso-tively impossible to remove. You have to extract the hard drive and clean it on another machine, then put it back into its own body and clean up the mess that's left.  

FWIW, i'd use these tools to do 99% of the work:

Kaspersky AV
Hi-Jack This
My-uninstaller
norton software removal tool

AV work is about carefully taking away. Rarely you'll hit a combination of tools that can clean a compromised machine from inside, but not often. Let me know if you don't have any luck messin' with it.