On Wednesday 25 August 2004 14:38, Lyvim Xaphir wrote:
--- John Richard Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
If you purchased this box with XP on it and they didn't give you XP installation discs then they usually supply backup file somewhere on the HD in a spare partition.If so it might well be worthwhile reinstalling from that. they are usually some drive image type of backup file and don't take very long to reinstall a brand new pristine condition OS as originally supplied. That's the best way to get rid of virus problems, provided that they have not spread to bios and partition tables, in which case it's a different ball game.
John
On partition installation files are not reliable on M$ boxes because of the spread of cab archive infections.
Well Lyvim and John... maybe I screwed things up again :
When doing the re-install, I used the built-in function from HP to create the "restore" CDs. Could that mean I transferred all the Trojans, Worms, Viruses and Spyware to the "restore" disks ?
Anyway, right now I've scanned the HD for viruses, and no one seems to have survived, but nevertheless, each time I've cleaned the drive with XoftSpy, Adaware and Spybot, they tell me that various numbers of malware have been "quarantained" and will be deleted at next reboot. Only to the effect, that next time I reboot and run the tools, I've got another s%#t-load of worms, etc... etc...
I'm very tempted to give up. Not in my wildest imagination could I come up with an OS this horrible !
My daughter feels sorry for me : for my birthday present I wanted a new toilet bag, so she gave me one. You can admire it here :
http://haulrich.net/Family/toiletbag.jpg
She's a real cutie.
Kaj Haulrich.
Kaj,
It sounds like your system is having more problems than it should. Did I understand you correctly in assuming that your WindowsXP image is stored somewhere on the hard drive? Some PC companies put the image or cab files for WindowsXP on a hidden partition, and this sounds like what has happened to you, but in your case, the image or files have also been infected, so re-installing from the harddrive may be a waste of time.
I suggest that you contact HP for a set of recovery CD's, then do a low-level or "zero-fill" format of the drive after you've received the CD's from HP. That is probably the only way to be 100% sure that you've got a clean install. Then you should try installing your extra software from a CD.
Another option is to disconnect your current hard drive, get another hard drive, and install Windows98 or another copy of WindowsXP on that temporary drive, then the service packs, anti-virus application AND it's updates. Once that's all done, reconnect your old drive as a slave drive and scan clean it thoroughly. Use two or three different anti-virus and spyware programs to make sure that it's totally clean. While you're doing this, make sure your PC is not connected to any other PC, whether its via firewire, Lan, or wireless! Make sure you disconnect the PC from any switch or router, and even your from Internet modem.
Once your scan is complete, reconnect the main drive as your primary drive, and start your install from scratch. If that doesn't work, you will need those recovery CD's from HP in order to solve this problem.
HTH
lanman
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