I warned him!!

[Bright_Star]

Today I get a call from my brother that he needs help with the laptop I gave him a while back. Seems when he turns it on it goes from the "Compaq" splash screen to the Windows XP screen & back again. It keeps doing this over & over again without stopping. So he gave it to me to work on.

I tried to put into safe mode so I could get rid of the crap he put on it but it wouldn't let me! Did some research on the internet & what I thought was confirmed:somehow he picked up some malware that keeps the laptop going in a never ending cycle that prevents it from reaching the desktop. It's acting a lot like it got the blaster virus. That's what it reminds me of.

So I called him & told him that he's got a possible malware infection. He said he went to this site that offers a free anti-malware program & when he started downloading it, that's when the problem started!

I'm thinking recovery disc but I'm not sure that would work. Any solutions you can think of? OR is he screwed?

[NightWatch]

You could probably fix it, but that sounds like it might leave some permanent damage or something (I hear a lot of computers infected with viruses, once fixed, still leave open backdoors for easier infection in the future)... He might want to consider a new computer.

[Bright_Star]

[QUOTE=NightWatch;636706]You could probably fix it, but that sounds like it might leave some permanent damage or something (I hear a lot of computers infected with viruses, once fixed, still leave open backdoors for easier infection in the future)... He might want to consider a new computer.[/QUOTE]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

[Der Cute]

Nuke and reinstall. If it's this hoseded , just say "You're screwed, you're losing data."

See if you can get the BIOS to boot from XP CD or a Win 98 CD for reformatting.....then put a XP CD in there for install.

Cutenoob

[gremcint]

boot from linux disc and then go nuts with anti malware.
I suggest malwarebytes.

[Eric the Grey]

You could probably fix it, but that sounds like it might leave some permanent damage or something (I hear a lot of computers infected with viruses, once fixed, still leave open backdoors for easier infection in the future)... He might want to consider a new computer.

No need to get a new computer, if you have the disks to wipe and reload windows. Cleaning it up without doing so may leave something behind, but if you wipe the drive (delete partitions and recreate, and new format with install right after) will suffice.


Eric the Grey

[Darkforge]

full wipe and reformat of the hard drives, followed by a reinstall of windows.

I hope your friend had backups

[EricKei]

Ultimate Boot CD For Windows (or another Linux boot disc) if he has any data worth saving, then MalWareBytes, et al. Or just wipe and reinstall.

[lordlundar]

He said he went to this site that offers a free anti-malware program & when he started downloading it, that's when the problem started!

<hands baseball bat to Bright_Star>

Go knock yourself out knocking him out.

[volatile]

I'm sorry, but buying a new computer is a ridiculous solution. As stated, you can just go for the nuke and pave route. If you want to fix it without a format, you can boot into a live UBCD and clean the computer that way enough to boot into the OS and finish off the repairs. I haven't kept up with the latest updates, but I believe they now include MalwareBytes as part of the image. If not included, adding it to the image is relatively simple and you can google that.

[EvilEmpryss]

I'm not tech support, but I'm curious: isn't buying a new hard drive a simple and sure-fire way to ensure that it's clean?

Most are pretty cheap for good size, especially if it's an older hand-me-down computer. I use Macs, not PCs (for the most part), but when a work PC got infected, all I did was pull the drive, put it in an external enclosure, and then pull all the files I was relatively certain were safe from the old drive to the new drive. Managed to salvage all of my work files that way, only cost about $60, and I wound up with a bigger hard drive in the process.

Oh, and when I was done with it, I completely wiped the external drive (I think I must have zeroed it out more than a dozen times, just to be certain), and then I had a nice external drive for my backups.

[Eric the Grey]

I'm not tech support, but I'm curious: isn't buying a new hard drive a simple and sure-fire way to ensure that it's clean?

While is is certainly a sure-fire way to get rid of the virus, if you feel the need to throw out a perfectly good hard drive, throw it my way, because there are numerous ways to clean it up and keep it usable.

Seriously, while there have been notable virus' that can corrupt the BIOS (the hardware that allows a PC to boot) (Hello Chernobyl) firmware, if the machine can boot, it can be cleaned up by wiping the drive and reinstalling the OS and programs. Actually replacing hardware to clear up an infection is almost never necessary.

In many companies, the goal is to get the PC working again as quickly as possible (non-working PC's cost money in lost productivity) and simply replacing the existing hard drive with a freshly formatted/cloned one is the quickest way to do so. They can then take the infected one away and wipe it at their leisure.

Hope that answered your question.


Eric the Grey

[volatile]

I'm not tech support, but I'm curious: isn't buying a new hard drive a simple and sure-fire way to ensure that it's clean?

Most are pretty cheap for good size, especially if it's an older hand-me-down computer. I use Macs, not PCs (for the most part), but when a work PC got infected, all I did was pull the drive, put it in an external enclosure, and then pull all the files I was relatively certain were safe from the old drive to the new drive. Managed to salvage all of my work files that way, only cost about $60, and I wound up with a bigger hard drive in the process.

Oh, and when I was done with it, I completely wiped the external drive (I think I must have zeroed it out more than a dozen times, just to be certain), and then I had a nice external drive for my backups.

If you don't mind reformatting it is the same thing and is free if you do it yourself and have install discs. If you are really paranoid about some how formatted files recovering itself then you can do a low-level DoD standard wipe and reinstall. The reason why some people recommend formatting after a severe infection is because there "might" be security holes that weren't fixed left behind. The security holes are in the operating system. When you reformat, you erase all data including your operating system. The security hole created by the infection is now gone because the damage done by the virus has been nullified.

[EvilEmpryss]

Thank you, Eric & Volatile. I thought that was the answer. My work wanted the computer up and running non, so it was easier for me to swap the drive than it was to mess around trying to figure out what -- exactly -- was wrong with it. I had been asking for an upgrade for a while, so when my coworker decided to play some games online (I'm guessing she downloaded something along the line) I got my wish. That, and the boss was too cheap to pay to send the computer out for repair.

Thank, too, for the info about the security holes native to the operating system.

[volatile]

Thank you, Eric & Volatile. I thought that was the answer. My work wanted the computer up and running non, so it was easier for me to swap the drive than it was to mess around trying to figure out what -- exactly -- was wrong with it. I had been asking for an upgrade for a while, so when my coworker decided to play some games online (I'm guessing she downloaded something along the line) I got my wish. That, and the boss was too cheap to pay to send the computer out for repair.

Thank, too, for the info about the security holes native to the operating system.

Your welcome. That's fine if that's what our company deemed necessary and wanted to, in the mean time, pull data off the old drive. Anyway, like Eric said, there have been cases where the BIOS has been corrupted. But that is usually pretty rare (at least I've never seen one before). What I recommend you or your company do is create an image of the hard drive and regularly capture images. Then if something every happens where you have to format or replace your hard drive you can just install the image of the previous drive into the new hard drive and you won't have to go through the hassle of reinstalling everything. Of course, depending on how regularly you create these images, you may not have all the files or programs you created/installed since your last image.