windows xp ruined

[Guest]

Hello folks. I am writing to try and help my brother in law. He never updated the virus program I put on for him and his computer ended up with over 200 trojan horses, pest and parasites. Some were making themselves over when he deleted them. He paniced and started deleting anything he didn't know! Shame on him. Now nothing works on his system. He is paying all this money for a computer and online and he can't use it. I restored his sons computer that had windows Me but his doesn't have a restore disk. He said no software came with it? Is that true? It is a Sony Vio with windows xp. We tried to restore but it doesn't work. How do we get his computer up and running again if he has no software? Your help is greatly appreciated as he has himself a werck over this mess. Thank you
Cyndy

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

You'll have to contact Sony for Specific instructions. There
should be a hidden "Recovery" partition on the hard drive from which
the OS can be restored to its original, ex-factory state. This
recovery process will, needless to say, completely wipe out any data
on the hard drive, so backup essential files before proceeding.

A good place to start:
http://ciscdb.sel.sony.com/perl/select-p-n.pl#PULLDOWN

Bruce Chambers

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Hello folks. I am writing to try and help my brother in law. He

never updated the virus program I put on for him and his computer
ended up with over 200 trojan horses, pest and parasites. Some were
making themselves over when he deleted them. He paniced and started
deleting anything he didn't know! Shame on him. Now nothing works on
his system. He is paying all this money for a computer and online and
he can't use it. I restored his sons computer that had windows Me but
his doesn't have a restore disk. He said no software came with it? Is
that true? It is a Sony Vio with windows xp. We tried to restore but
it doesn't work. How do we get his computer up and running again if he
has no software? Your help is greatly appreciated as he has himself a
werck over this mess. Thank you.

 

[JAX]

Hi Cyndy,

If there was no software provided with the PC, there should be a restore
partition on the hard drive. See whatever documentation that came with the
PC to determine how to use it. If you don't find anything, contact the
vender who sold hem the PC or see Sony's web-site.

LOL, JAX

Hello folks. I am writing to try and help my brother in law. He never

updated the virus program I put on for him and his computer ended up with
over 200 trojan horses, pest and parasites. Some were making themselves over
when he deleted them. He paniced and started deleting anything he didn't
know! Shame on him. Now nothing works on his system. He is paying all this
money for a computer and online and he can't use it. I restored his sons
computer that had windows Me but his doesn't have a restore disk. He said no
software came with it? Is that true? It is a Sony Vio with windows xp. We
tried to restore but it doesn't work. How do we get his computer up and
running again if he has no software? Your help is greatly appreciated as he
has himself a werck over this mess. Thank you.

 

[Guest]

Jax, thanks. He can't find anything that came with the puter. Not very organized and his basement flooded and he lost a lot there. I will tell him to try and contact Sony. Thanks.
Cyndy

 

[Guest]

Bruce thanks for the info. I will see if Sony can help him.
Cyndy

 

[JAX]

You're welcome Cyncy. I wish I could be more help to you.

JAX

Jax, thanks. He can't find anything that came with the puter. Not very

organized and his basement flooded and he lost a lot there. I will tell him
to try and contact Sony. Thanks.

 

[Lee Byatt]

Sony usually work from disks. They do use another partition but usually for
data backups.
In my experience Sony will only provide there recovery media on the basis
that the originals are damaged. They have in the past also requested the
machine is under 12months old and ask for proof of purchase.
You want to hope they are nothing like TOshiba and charge £70

 

[Fraser]

Greetings --

You'll have to contact Sony for Specific instructions. There
should be a hidden "Recovery" partition on the hard drive from which
the OS can be restored to its original, ex-factory state.

You absolutely must do this, do not attempt to fix it. When a server in an
office get compromised, even if only by one small thing, it gets rebuilt as
it's the only way you can be sure that it's clean. Virus programs only
recognise known viruses, so anyone that used a trojan to get in could have
hidden something of their own creation. Wiping the machine is the only way
to be sure, especially in this case given the damage done.

Also, treat any saved data/files from it as suspicious and quarantine them
until you can virus scan them.

Fraser.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Bruce thanks for the info. I will see if Sony can help him.
Cyndy

Sony provides a restore disk and a complete applications reinstall disk with
their Vaio systems. The entire set is usually in one "Zip-Lock" type bag and
consists of about 5 cds, depending of the software package he got with the
system on purchase. It is not difficult to misplace it. My Vaio laptop
originally came with XP Home but due to some networking concerns, I wiped it
clean of all the Sony software and purchased XP Pro for it. Getting rid of
all the Sony overhead garbage also helped the performance greatly.


EM

 

[Ed Medlin]

Jax, thanks. He can't find anything that came with the puter. Not very

organized and his basement flooded and he lost a lot there. I will tell him
to try and contact Sony. Thanks.

Cyndy

One other thing Cyndy, as messed up as his system apparently is, I would
wipe it clean and completely reinstall everything. It may be easier to just
purchase a copy of XP and install that. All the specific drivers for the
Vaio are on Sony's site for download for anything that may be proprietary.
Not much on the Vaio is proprietary unless it has memory stick reader or
touch-pad on laptops. I found that XP had native drivers for about
everything, even for the stick reader.


Em

 

[Fraser]

organized and his basement flooded and he lost a lot there. I will tell him
to try and contact Sony. Thanks.

One other thing Cyndy, as messed up as his system apparently is, I would
wipe it clean and completely reinstall everything. It may be easier to just
purchase a copy of XP and install that. All the specific drivers for the
Vaio are on Sony's site for download for anything that may be proprietary.
Not much on the Vaio is proprietary unless it has memory stick reader or
touch-pad on laptops. I found that XP had native drivers for about
everything, even for the stick reader.

If the machine was bought with a preinstalled OS legally, you should already
have a license key for XP. Just borrow a friends installation media and use
your own key. 100% legal I think. You could even use pirate media to do it,
as you own a license.

Fraser.