To slipstream or rollup or what to do to recover and infected system?

[Jamie Furlong]

Scenario: My friend has a laptop, Win XP Pro ("legal" copy) with SP1. It's
on a laptop, and although he has the box, the laptop recovery media is
scratched.
He got a nasty virus - MS Antispy is going nuts, the task manager has been
disabled, and something has deleted his restore points.

I have a "normal" copy of XP Pro (legal), and saw a website which explained
how to "slipstream" a copy of XP with SP2 onto a CD.

Would this be a way forward? Just to try and install windows over itself?
We just don't seem to be able to do anything online anymore - it WILL
connect to the internet, but as soon as we do, we're in "poly virus" and
"java.bytever" hell.
FWIW, he said it started as soon as he opened a movie which purported to be
a demo of the new Playstation (that's his story anyway!)

First, he doesn't want to lose his data if possible, secondly, I'm worried
that if I use my XP Cd (with his key, of course) whether the laptop will be
missing drivers.

So, slipstream? Thanks for any advice!

 

[Chelsea]

Your friend is really in trouble here. I take it the copy of XP on the
laptop is an OEM version rather than the retail? You can get a device for
removing scratches from a CD at a computer store-they work but I have never
tried on aWindows XP CD. I don't think a slipstream will work-it might
repair the damaged installation, but the virus will still be there. What
might work is making a copy of his CD and burning it to new media. Disk
burning software is very fault tollerant and will ask for corrupted data to
be resent. Another approach might be to just drag all the folders on the OS
CD to a new folder on your machine and then transfer to new media. There are
also apps for reading damaged CDs, which may be of interest. To be honest
though getting a new CD is probably the answer-so contact whoever made the
laptop. It's easy to be wise after the event but I guess you do realise that
not upgrading to SP2 2 years ago left the gate wide open for the virus and
spyware attack he now has to deal with. I guess that none of the securitity
patches have been applied as well as they often look for SP2?

Chelsea

 

[Jamie Furlong]

Your friend is really in trouble here.
Yup!

It's easy to be wise after the event but I guess you do realise that not
upgrading to SP2 2 years ago left the gate wide open for the virus and
spyware attack he now has to deal with. I guess that none of the
securitity patches have been applied as well as they often look for SP2?

Yes, I told him several times that he needed to put SP2 on and apply ALL the
patches.
This was going to take some time and I assumed he was going to do it, but
apparently "the IT guy at work had told him there was no point" and he'd
even turned the XP Firewall off, that I had turned on, because, again, he
was told it would slow things down. The twot! So I'm charging him - my
policy is this: good friends and close family always get free PC advice and
fixes, but anyone who ignores my advice to update, and then comes running,
gets charged (still only half shop rates though) Harsh, but fair I think!

 

[Chelsea]

No pain no gain. Perhaps a modest charge will make him realise that the
computer needs to be better looked after in future. He's probably right that
the service packs and security fixes slow things down a little, but there
isn't a choice here-it's a must do. You can bet that his PC has multiple
infections running. I hope you check any attachments he sends you lol.
Anyway best of luck with it.

Chelsea

 

[Jamie Furlong]

Phew! Finally got there after many reboots. I went through the system with
Spybot and then Adaware and finally one more AVG Scan - literally hundreds
of infected file! I then deleted all restore points, and ran the extremely
useful Autopatcher - http://www.autopatcher.com/ - don't know if anyone has
used this before, but this is probably one of the most useful additions to
me toolkit in a LONG time. Absolutely essential for any pc fixer type
person! (Oh, and it's free).
It took four hours, but only one reboot, and not a single net connection
needed, and brough the PC right up to date (only one update showing in MS
Update needed). After all that, one of the reasons the PC was so slow, was
that I told him to defrag. He'd gone and compressed the WHOLE hard drive!
(Shouldn't noticed the blue earlier!)
Once we'd uncompressed it, the PC ran a LOT faster, and not a single popup,
virus or weirdness. Thanks for help!