Machine is peppered with viruses and malware

jackiebaron

Hi folks,

If anyone can get me started on cleaning up a friend's laptop which is quite frankly riddled with crap and viruses and is running as slow as molasses I would appreciate it. It's been ages since I've cleaned up a machine (like 7 years). And normally back then I would have downloaded Hitman Pro and maybe Hijack This and run some scans and that was generally enough to get rid of most of the junk. It's an XP machine and doesn't have a proper ad/mal/virus protector.

I don't really want to just blow it out and reintall the OS....it would be preferable to try to clean it as best as possible.

Thanks for any tips.

chin_grin

Download and burn this (it's a live cd of BitDefender. Just download and burn the iso).

http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/

Put it in the machine and make sure that it's set to boot from the cd drive (in bios settings. If you're not sure just let it boot up the first time. If it doesn't give you the option to "Press any key to boot from cd" then restart and tap F8 or F12 to get in to the bios menu and change it there.)

So. When you boot up the live cd it should (once you have it connected to the net) run an update and then start a scan itself.

Hope that helps!

Also if you can boot in to safe mode you can install and run Malwarebytes.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

cram1971

I swear by http://www.malwarebytes.org/ then avg Free

Also Spyware S&D

jackiebaron

Thanks chin, thanks cram.

I'll pull them down now and give the machine a good scrub. I'll let you know how it goes.

jackiebaron

chin_grin wrote: »

Download and burn this (it's a live cd of BitDefender. Just download and burn the iso).

http://download.bitdefender.com/rescue_cd/

Put it in the machine and make sure that it's set to boot from the cd drive (in bios settings. If you're not sure just let it boot up the first time. If it doesn't give you the option to "Press any key to boot from cd" then restart and tap F8 or F12 to get in to the bios menu and change it there.)

So. When you boot up the live cd it should (once you have it connected to the net) run an update and then start a scan itself.

Hope that helps!

Also if you can boot in to safe mode you can install and run Malwarebytes.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Sorry, chin...but if I boot from the CD....then how can the machine connect to the net? (home wlan)

Biggins

jackiebaron wrote: »

Sorry, chin...but if I boot from the CD....then how can the machine connect to the net? (home wlan)

Can you connect it by use of an Ethernet (usually yellow) cable that you might have?

jackiebaron

Biggins wrote: »

Can you connect it by use of an Ethernet (usually yellow) cable that you might have?

Wireless network, Biggs. Just ran the scan...found a load of problems but after a recommended reboot it recognises nothing....just look like a Windows installation screen.:(

Skerries

can you get into safe mode?

jackiebaron

Skerries wrote: »

can you get into safe mode?

Yeah, I just got into safe mode now

MASTER...of the bra

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jackiebaron

My mistake...it was not XP but I think Vista or "7".

Anyway, I burnt Bitdefender and boot the sick machine from it. It ran through it Linux based scan but upon restart the machine comes up but really just sits at a basic graphic screen....no icons no windows no nothing just a cursor.

I kind of come from the old school whereby if a machine has any glitch...I just rebuild it....but you don't even get OS media anymore. It just starts by itself and they tell you in the shop to make a recovery disk (?).

This is a laptop bought legit in a shop.....I don't know if my silly friend has disks or license certificates....but I'm not looking to do anything dodgy here. Is there a way to resurrect this machine from some factory partition? Should a sticker on the machine have a reactivation code should I need to download the OS again.

Thanks.

jb

Biggins

If you were in travelling distance of me (Louth) I would get your laptop, take the drive out and attach it to my own via a Sata/IDE USB cable and scan it from my own pc with multiple best tools.
I've done this many, many times for others.

If someone you know can do similar it would solve your problem without having to mess around with re-installs, etc.
Can you link to the internet on it still and install stuff? If so you might want to try cloud anti-viruses scanners too such as this one for example: http://ahtim.com/panda-cloud-free-antivirus

cram1971

jackiebaron wrote: »

My mistake...it was not XP but I think Vista or "7".

Anyway, I burnt Bitdefender and boot the sick machine from it. It ran through it Linux based scan but upon restart the machine comes up but really just sits at a basic graphic screen....no icons no windows no nothing just a cursor.

I kind of come from the old school whereby if a machine has any glitch...I just rebuild it....but you don't even get OS media anymore. It just starts by itself and they tell you in the shop to make a recovery disk (?).

This is a laptop bought legit in a shop.....I don't know if my silly friend has disks or license certificates....but I'm not looking to do anything dodgy here. Is there a way to resurrect this machine from some factory partition? Should a sticker on the machine have a reactivation code should I need to download the OS again.

Thanks.

jb

It sounds like the AV has deleted some of the infected OS files and you need to do a repair install. Is the machine starting to boot? If it is can you get into safe mode? If you google the machine name you will be able to find out if it has a repair partition most new laptops do and if it is Vista or 7 you might be in luck. Taking a hard drive out of some laptops can be tricky particularly smaller ones, also some laptop hard drives do not have standard hard drives connections

Biggins

cram1971 wrote: »

...Taking a hard drive out of some laptops can be tricky particularly smaller ones, also some laptop hard drives do not have standard hard drives connections

True so best left to those who know what they are doing and have the right equipment.

Overheal

If you're dealing with that many viruses I say you evacuate all the precious files (music, movies, saves files, photos, documents) and nuke the entire installation, starting from scratch. You could spend days trying to clean an active install and you might not even get all of it.

Biggins

Overheal wrote: »

If you're dealing with that many viruses I say you evacuate all the precious files (music, movies, saves files, photos, documents) and nuke the entire installation, starting from scratch. You could spend days trying to clean an active install and you might not even get all of it.

I do that a lot of the time but occassionaly I get owners who have no back-up discs, no wish to have their present layout/set-up altered etc.
So one has to try and make the best of an awkward situation.

jackiebaron

Overheal wrote: »

If you're dealing with that many viruses I say you evacuate all the precious files (music, movies, saves files, photos, documents) and nuke the entire installation, starting from scratch. You could spend days trying to clean an active install and you might not even get all of it.

Looks like I might, OH. The machine had Windows Vista Basic on it and there is a product code on the laptop so I guess I can just download it again and then install it and try to customise that crappy OS for my friend. Anyone know where to get Vista Basic? Can't find it on Microsoft.com.

cookie1977

I dont think thats possible jackie. Did you not get a full install disc or a restore disc with the PC?