Blow it away and the malware with it! I suspect that this last option will become more popular as zero-day attacks become more frequent and virtualization software becomes easier for us mere mortals to use…. Following a devastating malware attack I was left with a machine which would no longer boot up in Windows XP.
I had to reinstall to factory default settings XP SP1 using the manufacturers rescue disk, losing all data and programs in the process. Fortunately I had some data on a backup disk more than a month out of date but it was a long and painful process restoring all lost programs. An alternative would be to boot into a Linux Live CD Ubuntu, Knoppix, others… and use that to copy only the files you want off of the external drive.
I think your 5 steps would be much clearer if you changed it to 6 steps and included a step before the step to reinstall all your applications to first install all your protection ie antirus, firewall, anti maleware software and windows updates. Just thought this might be worth trying. It prevented her anti-virus programmes from working and prevented her from downloading any others. The programme downloaded successfully and destroyed the viruses.
He therefore could not download this anti-virus programme. I copied the programme onto a data disc-pen and he was able to run straight it from there.
Again, it got rid of all the viruses. Hope this comment is useful. Leo, on some of the comments the last part of these comments are not readable.
They are covered up. Am I doing something wrong? The boot process would go into a continious cycle of trying to boot. If you can still navigate in your machine attempt to backup any pictures,music,or documents to CD or DVD.
It may be the last chance you get. I never backup to my external drive until I have disconnect from the IP and run a full system scan. If you use a external drive for backup some of the software programs for conducting the process have a catalog file that tells your computer where everthing goes when you do a recovery or you may have created a recovery disk as part of the program.
If a reformat is the only way out then load you installation disk. There are actually two format options with one being identified as a fast format. Do yourselve a favor and use the slow format. After you reload the OS you can get your updates. The Windows firewall should offer enought protection to complete that task. One more point on external hardrives for backup. All your files are still there. Turn on the hardrive and go to my computer, Windows should reconize it.
Your backed up files will most likely be a set. You can download the whole thing to your documents and use exployer to open the set and pick out the individual files pictures,music,documents and move them where they need to be. Twelve Gig, files,five evenings,piece of cake! Hope this helps. Once a month, after Microsoft updates on Tuesday, I use Acronis TrueImage to make a full image backup of my disk drive to an external disk drive. I keep several months of Acronis TrueImage backups so if necessary I can go back farther than the past backup if somehow some virus slipped through my anti-virus scans.
Reformating and reinstalling everything is like torture, and to be avoided at all costs. Acronis TrueImage is simple, easy, fast, and has saved me a couple of times. Many thanks for answering my query re your article a few days ago.
A latte should be with you by now. I had a virtual Symantec technician look at it and they thoroughly destroyed my system to the point where it was virtually inoperable… after that, I took it to a local shop and they are unable to wipe the HD and get rid of the virus so I do need a new drive.
Before doing this, I had a computer person at my office try to fix it. Vicious, ugly virus! Now if only people put their time and effort into the common good instead of hurting unsuspecting people the world would be much better off…. My laptop is a windows vista.
I was working normally on subtitle workshop when suddenly it said the the program had a problem and had to shut down. When I restarted the program, I had a black screen and I was unable to boot my computer.
Now it would not even want to reinstall Vista and I get a message saying that my hard disk is dammaged. In my opinion it is not worth the trouble of trying to clean them off both time wise and also you can never be completely sure that they have been totally eradicated.
So instead invest in an external hard drive, they are really affordable now and can serve more than one purpose [storing films or a music library for instance] Next download a Disk Imaging programme. There are great free ones available. I use Macrium Reflect Free version which is very easy to use and reliable.
Make a disk image on to the external as a fall back. This will include everything on your PC. Then make a backup on your documents and music etcetera although you have already got this in your full disk image.
This documents back up is done by copying to your external and not via the Disk Image programme. Now you have the fall back use your rescue CD or Windows disk to reinstall your system to when you bought it. Depending on your disk you may have to reinstall drivers as well so make sure you have that sorted.
Now comes the painful bit. You will need to reinstall all your programmes from the web or any disks you may have. You will also need to visit the Microsoft Updates site to bring all software up to date.
This can entail several visits and a lot of time depending how old your PC is. Eventually, I can get into windows and I am no longer the administrator.
A new account is on my computer and all anti virus is gone and unreachable. Any advice on how to clean infected files would be nice. Otherwise I guess I have to just format everything, even stuff that wasn't on C:. This would result in data loss of both backups and current files.
Nothing is encrypted, but I cannot copy it without windows exploding. Anti virus, anti malware all comes up negative. I've run CryptoLocker Scan Tool, it says that many files may be encrypted. If ran, or copied, these files seem to reinstall whatever the virus is and the encryption process starts again.
I'm reading about ransom-ware and people are saying that it isn't supposed to self replicate like that Just letting everyone know my observations. I hope i'm wrong. I hope that the "may be encrypted" is a false positive. But anytime a file is copied, my computer freezes, and all anti virus is deleted. Nothing is ever detected as a virus before hand. I formatted again. Fresh install. All drives formatted. On first boot explorer is redirecting to malicious sites and crashes over and over.
Anti virus didn't catch any issues. I can attach the files if you'd like. Mcshield does detect one of my usb sticks has a virus. Though, after the message comes up it says its clean The message that its infected comes up everytime i plug it in.
No antivirus detects anything on it. Not sure how I can clean it if mcshield, bitdefender, and malwarebytes doesn't see anything. You mention all drives have been formatted, so before you make a fresh install are all of these drives clear?
Drive c: Fixed Total Drive m: Unused Fixed Total This log will be excessive, Please attach it to your next reply…. Due to the lack of feedback this topic is closed to prevent others from posting here. If you need this topic reopened, please send a Private Message to any one of the moderating team members. Please include a link to this thread with your request. This applies only to the originator of this thread. Posted by: John 30 Oct I know this is not a Windows computer, but I in the early Y2K I remember reading about DirecTV sending a signal down that intentionally destroyed circuits actually burned in the DirecTV receivers that contained hacked smart cards.
I think we all know about Apple bricking all the iPhones that were repaired by unauthorized dealers. Apple lost a class action suit in doing so. I am not sure if the phones had physical damage or not, but were not repairable and had to be replaced. Posted by: Charles 30 Oct Posted by: Jene 30 Oct In the very, very early days of the PC, there were a couple of hardware weaknesses that could be used to produce physical damage. These have been fixed.
A program loop that moves the disk access arm rapidly to the extremes could cause the alignment to be damaged. The original monochrome display could be burned out if the sweep circuit in the monochrome adapter were turned off, leaving direct current across the deflection coils. These vulnerabilities were fixed long ago. Posted by: BaliRob 30 Oct I concur with Bob's assertion that a Virus cannot damage a HD. Those that read this column will remember me bleating on about MS and its dangerous Updates causing havoc and causing problems for BOTH August and September - the second of which made it totally unable to get at the BIOS or System Restore and having been observed at switch-on trying to instal past Locked Screen without success.
I still do not have the courage to allow the October 'roll-up' to touch my machine which also was issued for the Defender problem not known about. But only having unpaid support volunteers available to us - it is impossible to speak to any Firefox technician for an opinion and repair. Posted by: Michael Scholl 30 Oct There are people who use the term "hard dtive" to describe their desktop computers. Posted by: dbaSteve 31 Oct I had the flu and was so sick I wasn't thinking clearly.
During the worst of my illness, I was working on my PC. Because I was sick, I dropped the hard drive and it broke. In this case, a flu virus destroyed my hard drive. Posted by: BaliRob 01 Nov Thus no Language Pack needs to be incded in Add-Ons. Posted by: John 21 Jul Computer viruses most certainly can and do destroy hard drives. What the virus was intended to do is irrelevant.
Viruses are hacks, are not well tested, and usually poorly written. Some viruses have been seen to change the voltages on some motherboards that overclock the memory, USB ports, fans, or CPU. Back several years ago one of my PC roasted while I was gone. It even started overwriting the page file. The machine was very hot. When I turned it off and turned it back on, it was done. Comments of a political nature are discouraged. Please limit your remarks to paragraphs. If you want to see your comment posted, pay attention to these items.
All comments are reviewed, and may be edited or removed at the discretion of the moderator. If you want to ask a question click here. Need tech support? Of course, there are some perfectly good reasons for intentionally destroying a hard drive.
Ask Your Computer or Internet Question. Thank you so much for your patience if you got this far hahaha.
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