Problems with Viruses and Trojans

[Anon]

For three days now I have been having problems with viruses. I find
stuff and remove it, (just a few minutes AVG 8.0 finally found a trojan
and moved it to quarantine, and that seems to have fixed one problem),
but each time I find and remove something, something else pops up, so I
don't have a lot of confidence that this is the end of it.

My wife bought Kaspersky with a three machine license, and anti-virus
software is always very difficult to uninstall. So instead of trying to
uninstall AVG 8.0, I think it would be easier to rebuild my system.

What I'm going to do is format my hard drive and reinstall Windows 2000
and reinstall my drivers, SP4, the security roll-up, Open Office,
Firefox, etc.

What I want to know is do I need to reformat the whole drive, or just
the C: partition? Do I need to worry that the trojans, viruses,
spyware, etc has infected my documents or other files on the other
partitions, and will reinfect my computer as soon as I try to open them?

If the documents on the other partitions are infected, how do I clean
them up? I've got stuff out there that I don't want to just delete.

I have DBAN Boot and Nuke, but I don't think I can use it on just the
C:\ partition. It looks like it will nuke the whole drive. Am I wrong
about this? Can I use it on just the C:\ partition?

 

[Dave Patrick]

You should be able to scan the disks at boot from floppy.

Also FYI; (format the partition in lieu of deleting if you're going that
method)

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup
disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your Windows 2000
CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute
makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the
prompts.

(Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll want
to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. Then *F6* very early and very
important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent drive
controller detection, and select S to specify additional drivers. Then later
you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied Windows 2000 driver
for your drive controller in drive "A")

Setup inspects your computer's hardware configuration and then begins to
install the Setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional
screen appears, press ENTER to set up Windows 2000 Professional.

Read the license agreement, and then press the F8 key to accept the terms of
the license agreement and continue the installation.

When the Windows 2000 Professional Setup screen appears, all the existing
partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard
disk. Use the ARROW keys to select the partitions Press D to delete an
existing partition, If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must
then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System
partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this
step for each of the existing partitions When all the partitions are deleted
press F3 to exit setup, (to avoid unexpected drive letter assignments with
your new install) then restart the pc then when you get to this point in
setup again select the unpartitioned space, and then press C to create a new
partition and specify the size (if required). Windows will by default use
all available space.

Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your new install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en




--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Anon]

You should be able to scan the disks at boot from floppy.

Also FYI; (format the partition in lieu of deleting if you're going that
method)

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or
setup disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your
Windows 2000 CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and
execute makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow
the prompts.

(Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll
want to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. Then *F6* very early and
very important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to
prevent drive controller detection, and select S to specify additional
drivers. Then later you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer
supplied Windows 2000 driver for your drive controller in drive "A")

Setup inspects your computer's hardware configuration and then begins to
install the Setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional
screen appears, press ENTER to set up Windows 2000 Professional.

Read the license agreement, and then press the F8 key to accept the
terms of the license agreement and continue the installation.

When the Windows 2000 Professional Setup screen appears, all the
existing partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each
physical hard disk. Use the ARROW keys to select the partitions Press D
to delete an existing partition, If you press D to delete an existing
partition, you must then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it
is the System partition) to confirm that you want to delete the
partition. Repeat this step for each of the existing partitions When all
the partitions are deleted press F3 to exit setup, (to avoid unexpected
drive letter assignments with your new install) then restart the pc then
when you get to this point in setup again select the unpartitioned
space, and then press C to create a new partition and specify the size
(if required). Windows will by default use all available space.

Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your new install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en

In addition to W2KSP4_EN.EXE which has a download size of 132,302KB
Microsoft also has "Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 Express Install for End
Users" (SP4express_EN.exe), which has a download size of 589 KB

Is the "Express" version compressed for a quicker download?
Did Microsoft leave something out of it?

 

[John John (MVP)]

In addition to W2KSP4_EN.EXE which has a download size of 132,302KB
Microsoft also has "Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 Express Install for End
Users" (SP4express_EN.exe), which has a download size of 589 KB

Is the "Express" version compressed for a quicker download?
Did Microsoft leave something out of it?

It would be quite a feat to compress a 132 Megabyte file down to 589
kilobytes! The Express Install file is a small program that you
download and run on your computer, the program will ask a few basic
questions, do a check of your machine and then connect to the internet
and download the necessary files to update your installation to SP4.
This will be quicker than downloading the whole SP4 package because
unneeded files will not be downloaded, for example if SP4 includes a
patch for AMD processors and you are running on an Intel that particular
patch doesn't need to be installed on your computer so it won't be
downloaded. SP4 is a collection of patches and it also includes all
previous Service Packs, if you have already installed SP# 1,2 or 3 or
other patches via Windows Updates these patched will not be downloaded
again. That is the "Express" meaning of this package, in reality out of
the full 132 MB Service pack maybe you only need 30MB worth of files to
update your machine to SP4. The drawback is that no service pack files
are saved when you do an Express install. If you reinstall Windows, or
if you need to reapply the service pack, or if you have more than one
machine to patch you have to rerun the program and download all the
files again, whereas if you download the full package you can save it to
a cd or other backup location and run it whenever and wherever you need
to, in the long run it may be a lot quicker and more convenient to
simply download and save the full package.

John

 

[Anon]

It would be quite a feat to compress a 132 Megabyte file down to 589
kilobytes! The Express Install file is a small program that you
download and run on your computer, the program will ask a few basic
questions, do a check of your machine and then connect to the internet
and download the necessary files to update your installation to SP4.
This will be quicker than downloading the whole SP4 package because
unneeded files will not be downloaded, for example if SP4 includes a
patch for AMD processors and you are running on an Intel that particular
patch doesn't need to be installed on your computer so it won't be
downloaded. SP4 is a collection of patches and it also includes all
previous Service Packs, if you have already installed SP# 1,2 or 3 or
other patches via Windows Updates these patched will not be downloaded
again. That is the "Express" meaning of this package, in reality out of
the full 132 MB Service pack maybe you only need 30MB worth of files to
update your machine to SP4. The drawback is that no service pack files
are saved when you do an Express install. If you reinstall Windows, or
if you need to reapply the service pack, or if you have more than one
machine to patch you have to rerun the program and download all the
files again, whereas if you download the full package you can save it to
a cd or other backup location and run it whenever and wherever you need
to, in the long run it may be a lot quicker and more convenient to
simply download and save the full package.

John

Thank you for your reply.

I haven't had any problems that I could detect since AVG 8.0 found the
trojan yesterday, but I'm worried that there may be something lurking
quietly in the background, such as a spambot that comes awake in the
middle of the night, or a key logger that wakes up when I log onto
PayPal. Since I'm worried about it I will probably reinstall

If I do reinstall Windows 2000, I will probably do it Monday, and I will
use W2KSP4_EN.EXE for two reasons

1) I have already downloaded it and have it in my Reinstalling Windows
2000 folder on my Download partition

but more importantly,

2) I don't want to connect to the internet until I have loaded SP4 and
the Windows 2000 SP4 Rollup.

Thanks again