Virus infection

[P. Croft]

my computer is infected with, at the last count, 37 viruses!! This has all
happened within the last week. I have tried reloading windows xp lots of
times, formating the hard drive, etc but i can't seem to get rid of the
viruses.
Can anyone tell me how i can completely clean my hard drive so i can start
again?
Oh, and i have tried using fdisk but it will not run!
Also, is it ever possible that you can not remove all viruses, thus making
my whole computer useless?
Thanks in advance, any help is more than welcome!!

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

I would suggest downloading the free 30 day trial version
of Iolo's excellent DriveScrubber and using it:
http://www.iolo.com/ds/index.cfm

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

Antivirus software: Frequently asked questions
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/antivirus.mspx

List of antivirus software vendors
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;49500

Protect your computer
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/viruses/default.mspx

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security Technologies:
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx

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:

| my computer is infected with, at the last count, 37 viruses!! This has all
| happened within the last week. I have tried reloading windows xp lots of
| times, formating the hard drive, etc but i can't seem to get rid of the
| viruses.
| Can anyone tell me how i can completely clean my hard drive so i can start
| again?
| Oh, and i have tried using fdisk but it will not run!
| Also, is it ever possible that you can not remove all viruses, thus making
| my whole computer useless?
| Thanks in advance, any help is more than welcome!!

 

[Simon Hawking]

my computer is infected with, at the last count, 37 viruses!! This has all
happened within the last week. I have tried reloading windows xp lots of
times, formating the hard drive, etc but i can't seem to get rid of the
viruses.
Can anyone tell me how i can completely clean my hard drive so i can start
again?
Oh, and i have tried using fdisk but it will not run!
Also, is it ever possible that you can not remove all viruses, thus making
my whole computer useless?
Thanks in advance, any help is more than welcome!!

Do you have any anti-virus software? If not shame on you.

If you do, seems like a virus has disabled it. Try a free online scan from
Panda Security or House call from Trend. Once clean, goto your AV vendors
site and manually download the dat files.

 

[Enkidu]

my computer is infected with, at the last count, 37
viruses!! This has all happened within the last week.
I have tried reloading windows xp lots of times,
formating the hard drive, etc but i can't seem to get
rid of the viruses.

If you formatted the hard drive it is difficult to see how
the virus could have survived. My guess is that you are
getting infected again immediately, probably the first time
that you connect to the Internet.

Get hold of a firewall (eg Zone Alarm) if you don't have XP
SP2, and an anti-virus program, and get the later virus
definitions on **before** you connect to the Internet.

I know that this is a chicken and egg situation. You will
need someone, a friend or relation, with a clean machine to
download the virus definitions for you. If they can download
SP2 for you too that would be good. If you can locate an
uber-geek, they might be able to streamline SP2 onto an XP
CD for you.

If not, make sure whatever firewall you have is on, you have
the latest virus defs installed, and visit Windows Update.
Be prepared for a long download. When that has completed you
should be safe(r) from viruses.

I also install Ad-Aware and Spy-Bot Search and Destroy to
detect Adware and updated them (and the anti-virus) frequently.

Maintaining your adware software and your virus software is
like cleaning the loo or taking out the garbage - no one
likes to do it, but everyone HAS to.

Cheers,

Cliff