Format or Re-Install XP (Oh My God)

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Hey,


I got so many Spyware,Trojans,virus on my comp,it not funny,even with a AV,Spyware protection and a firewall (got 8 MB cable)

I was told by a fellow .orgah to format my C Drive. I got Sereveal Questions:

What is the Advtanges of Both??

Will Formating Take off all the Trojans and such?




My Main Question is

I Installed my New GC in Late Setember. a Radeon X1300 256MB Card.. I also had to install it and disable my Intergated one that was already in my Computer. If I Format my C Drive, Will it Stay on my Radeon card (I hope) or will it go back to the Intergated??

[sharrukin]

Hey,


I got so many Spyware,Trojans,virus on my comp,it not funny,even with a AV,Spyware protection and a firewall (got 8 MB cable)

I was told by a fellow .orgah to format my C Drive. I got Sereveal Questions:

What is the Advtanges of Both??

Will Formating Take off all the Trojans and such?




My Main Question is

I Installed my New GC in Late Setember. a Radeon X1300 256MB Card.. I also had to install it and disable my Intergated one that was already in my Computer. If I Format my C Drive, Will it Stay on my Radeon card (I hope) or will it go back to the Intergated??

Formatting will remove all trojans, viruses, etc.

AVG, Spybot S&D, and Avast are what I use and they should remove most problems. Another option is to go to Trend Micro - Free online virus Scan.
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
It should automatically remove most of them as well.
When you find a problem run the software AGAIN to be sure all have been removed.

If you have drivers you need to keep, burn them to a CD, then reload after format.

[hoom]

Formatting will get rid of everything on the drive so unless you have carefully made sure that anything you want to keep is backed up somewhere else, only do it as a last resort!

Formatting will get rid of most bad stuff but there are actually some things that it won't get rid of.
The same sort of PC usage that got problems there in the first place can get a brand new windows install chock-a-block with infection within mere hours

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Hey,

Thanks Guys, Though, (sometimes I don't notice things off the bat), Would my New Graphic Card be safe, or would I have to install it all over again??

[tibilicus]

Hey,


I got so many Spyware,Trojans,virus on my comp,it not funny,even with a AV,Spyware protection and a firewall (got 8 MB cable)

I was told by a fellow .orgah to format my C Drive. I got Sereveal Questions:

What is the Advtanges of Both??

Will Formating Take off all the Trojans and such?




My Main Question is

I Installed my New GC in Late Setember. a Radeon X1300 256MB Card.. I also had to install it and disable my Intergated one that was already in my Computer. If I Format my C Drive, Will it Stay on my Radeon card (I hope) or will it go back to the Intergated??


Stay of the porn then.

~:P

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

No Kidding

Friends always laced my sites with porn sites and I never notice untill........

[tibilicus]

Lol the classic "my freinds did it i swear" ~;)

Anyway stay of those sites use firefox and mcafee site advisor and the noscript extension to. ~;)

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

:)

I been Using Firefox, since I got a bad taste for IE and since I been to lazy to update my other Mozilla..

[Oaty]

I dont reccomend reinstall just for the fact it can make things worse than better casuing twice the problems as now your only option is to format.

[Husar]

The same sort of PC usage that got problems there in the first place can get a brand new windows install chock-a-block with infection within mere hours
Minutes. I got that blaster worm once while downloading Windows updates...:laugh4:
But by installing the firewall before connecting to the net, this can easily be solved.
And your graphicscard should be safe Warman, as long as you won't reset your BIOS or any virus has infected your BIOS, but I think that kind of virus is rather scarce since I doubt any script kiddie could make such a virus easily.


If you have drivers you need to keep, burn them to a CD, then reload after format.
I think there is a great danger that the CD will be infected as well, I have heard some people claiming things like: "my boyfriend burned me this CD and now I got a virus from it..."

[LeftEyeNine]

Formatting will pick you out of any troubles for sure, as long as you have only one partition (only C, that is).

However, although it is rare and a small possibility, there is the probability of those annoy-wares spreading to a secondary partition of your hard disk drive, such as D, E or others if you have any and more. So that formatting your C will not mean much because those goblins will spread out back on your system from the other partitions as soon as possible.

I don't have a firewall, I don't do scans all the time, my Kaspersky is always paused, not eating up my resources all the time while I'm on games etc. And my system was never plundered by such stuff, because it is all about watching your step. If you don't walk on weak stairs, you don't have to carry a heavy metal casket all the time. I also want to indicate my hatred towards this "OH THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, HERE USE MY GADGET !" paranoia created on the internet. It reminds me of US policy towards its own society. :tongue:

Good luck, stay out of browsing for porn. ~:)

[hoom]

Oh btw, you will need to reinstall all device drivers if the drive is formatted.
That includes 3D card drivers.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

so you mean I will have to re-install the Radeon X1300 256MB Card I got then? I like to format this dang comp of mine before MTW2 comes out but I don't want to make ploblems worse but formatting it and messing up the GC..

[LeftEyeNine]

Formatting deletes any and everything that is located on the applied partition.

For an error-free formatting sequence:

- Download your motherboard's latest drivers
- Download your video card's most appropriate drivers (substitute "latest" instead if you get confused)
- Download your sound card's latest drivers (if it's not an on-board one or if it does not come bundled with your motherboard's drivers)
- Download WinRAR (Some drivers may be archived in different formats)
- Save these files on another partition that you're not planning to format (like D, E etc.). Or immediately burn them on a media without executing any of them to prevent a possible infection. Prefer CD or DVD. USB sticks may not be available in the beginning, so don't trust them at this step for a backup means.
- Format and install your OS (e.g. Win XP)
- Install WinRAR
- Install Motherboard drivers and reboot after installation if prompted. Do not try "I'll reboot later" thinking that you will install your video card's drivers so that you'll do it all with a single reboot. This does not have to cause problems but it may (happened to me).
- Install video card's drivers. Reboot.
- Install other drivers (such as sound card) if any left. Reboot.

Voila!

[Oaty]

Formatting will pick you out of any troubles for sure, as long as you have only one partition (only C, that is).

However, although it is rare and a small possibility, there is the probability of those annoy-wares spreading to a secondary partition of your hard disk drive, such as D, E or others if you have any and more. So that formatting your C will not mean much because those goblins will spread out back on your system from the other partitions as soon as possible.


The only thing is it is dead because it is no longer embedded into your registry/ operating system and only the freeware embedded with scumware will reenstiall itself when you reactivate it.

[doc_bean]

Formatting your c:\ drive when you're using windows pretty much means you won't be able to run anything of your secondary partitions anyway (programs that is, mp3s and videos should still work), so you might as well reformat everything :afro:

[caravel]

I doubt you'll need to reinstall. There are ways to remove this type of malware safely, if you've got the patience to go through it all, and then be more careful in future. If not, then just format and reinstall Windows XP.

[TosaInu]

Grab a true copy of SP2 and burn the 100's of mb to a CD. Install windows, install SP2 then connect to the internet.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=049c9dbe-3b8e-4f30-8245-9e368d3cdb5a&DisplayLang=en

How professional do you feel today?
(You don't have to do scary things, actually I guess it's 100% the same thing, but without the hassle).


The on-board video card is likely disabled in the BIOS. A reinstall of windows shouldn't activate it, a clear CMOS would though.

[Husar]

I doubt you'll need to reinstall. There are ways to remove this type of malware safely, if you've got the patience to go through it all, and then be more careful in future. If not, then just format and reinstall Windows XP.
I would consider reformatting to be the easier way and also more secure.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

k Thanks guys, going to do what Tosa Said, and format tomarrow or so..

I got one More Question. Is The FireWall that comes with XP good? since I would have to re-install my another one?

[tibilicus]

Xp firewall only stops ingoing traffic not outbound or rotued. It's recomended to use another free one like zone alarm.

Tib

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Is Zone Alarm Free :-) :-)??

[TosaInu]

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp?dc=12bms&ctry=GB&lang=en

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

That Answers my Question, Thanks All and wish me Luck Tomarrow!! :-) :-)

[TosaInu]

Thanks All and wish me Luck Tomarrow!! :-) :-)

Good luck.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

After 2 full days of backing up my stuff, I go to format my computer and........


https://img90.imageshack.us/img90/1413/evilmachine88bn5.jpg

any help guys, Because I really need to format this Piece of Trash Computer I got..

[Motep]

Could you makre that pic a wee-bit bigger please?

p.s. the same thing kinda happened to me a couple weeks ago...I had to take it back to the person who built it for me ...he did nothing else and it too him a week to fix my computer.

[caravel]

Not sure what the error is because I can't see it, but I think the problem is pretty obvious. You can't format the active partition containing the OS! You'll need to boot from the WinXP CDROM to reformat and reinstall.

Also, having read your thread, I'm not sure if you realise what you're doing here. Reformatting will completely destroy all data. Your OS and programs, and any settings related to them will be completely removed forever. Your backups should be thorough, but should only be personal files or savegames for your games if you can find them. There is no need to back up installed programs. You should reinstall those later from your installation CDROMs.

Also I'm quite sure that with a few anti-spyware tools we could have cleaned your system up. I've cleaned up worse systems than your's in the past, trust me. ~;) These machines were mission critical and resintalling was out of the question.

[LeftEyeNine]

Oh man, BHC, you can't format a drive which is being used. Can you flush clean a water tap with itself ? So :


You'll need to boot from the WinXP CDROM to reformat and reinstall.

..what he said. But after seeing this, I doubt you can get over the hassle of formatting from a Win Xp CD. You may need to change boot sequence options from your BIOS etc. Therefore if you are sure you want a format, let some knowledgable lad do it for you, or if you give it up, Caravel is a trustworthy Hard- Software lurker, listen to his recommendation.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Yea, I get a bigger pic

But m8, my comp isn't going to be fix with some spyware tools. My Comp is to the point of, ethier I format it, and take all the Spyware/Trojans and Worms down with my other info, or have my whole comp blow up.

So you mean it will destroy all data? Of Course, my Brother formatted his C Drive on his comp to, and it didn't help, since he had several Drives. it destroys the OS? To What extent though?

[doc_bean]

my Brother formatted his C Drive on his comp to, and it didn't help, since he had several Drives. it destroys the OS? To What extent though?

You'll need to completely reinstall Windows and reinstall (download, for most people) all the updates. You'll also need to reinstall all drivers and additional software, but you already knew that I guess.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Nope. didn't know that. I Thought Formatting just Deleted all the stuff, and that's it. But, if I have to re-ninstall Windows again, what the sense of formattion :-/?

[LeftEyeNine]

The sense is you get rid of ANY AND EVERYTHING!

..sounds genius, right ?

[Husar]

..sounds genius, right ?
Yes, long live the man who introduced formatting into the computer world.:clown:

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Well Of Course, But if you have to install Windows Again, What the sense of formatting, when you could just re-install windows :-/

Here The pic now
See if it better,just zoom in

https://img157.imageshack.us/img157/6086/ev8is6.jpg

[Oaty]

In sert the windows disk, then turn off your computer. Restart it and instead of booting up you should be prompted by windows install.

The choices will be reinsatll, format and install or cancel.

If your bootup doesnt read the disk you need to set bios to bootup from the CD before it boots from the main disk

[doc_bean]

Well Of Course, But if you have to install Windows Again, What the sense of formatting, when you could just re-install windows :-/



Because reinstalling windows on top of windows solves ****.

EDIT: It actually causes a lot more problems, DO NOT DO THIS.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Just like I thought Bean. I read in my one PC Magainze,how it is Hell (hope that is allow) to install XP, but twice as bad to re-install

Have to Find my XP disc then, Thanks Guys :-) :-)

[caravel]

Yea, I get a bigger pic

I've seen it below. It's as I've said. The partition is active so it cannot be formatted.


But m8, my comp isn't going to be fix with some spyware tools. My Comp is to the point of, ethier I format it, and take all the Spyware/Trojans and Worms down with my other info, or have my whole comp blow up.

You don't know that. I've brought back quite a few machines from the brink in the past. The users had obviously been seriously into pr0n and had taken no precautions whatsoever. There are means to remove such trojans, browser hijacks and spyware, but it's never easy. It's usually much easier than reinstalling however, though if you're little or no computer knowledge, both tasks are equally difficult.


So you mean it will destroy all data? Of Course, my Brother formatted his C Drive on his comp to, and it didn't help, since he had several Drives. it destroys the OS? To What extent though?

In basic terms ,formatting removes the file allocation table and rewrites it to effectively erase all of the data on the disk. The disk then becomes a new disk. This is why datas is referred to as being "lost" rather than being destroyed or deleted, because it is there, but you can no longer access it. New files will be written over the old data, which is treated as free space. Restarting your PC after this will give the message "missing operating system" and nothing else. To render the PC usable you will need to resintall the OS again from scratch. Once reinstalled you will need to reinstall the drivers for your hardware, reinstall your programs and reconfigure the OS to suit your needs. If you don't feel up to such a task I suggest that you seek the assistance of a professional, or go down the route of trying to "exorcise" the malware from your system.

[Husar]

I don't know in what way installing Windows should be hell, I have been sleeping while Vista Beta 2 installed on my system and when I woke up it was ready to go except for some plugins of course.
I think XP is similar or only slightly worse, never felt the need to sleep while installing it, but I think I heard that it also goes on and does it automatically, if not, I don't know what's hard about choosing a timezone or giving your computer a name?

[caravel]

XP dates back to 2001. As soon as it's installed on a newer system chances are that it needs alot of updating to service pack 2 and then a whole host of other updates. Then there's motherboard chipsets drivers, graphics card drivers, sound card drivers, etc etc. We can assume that someone has a bog standard rig, and that XP's included drivers will support 99% of the hardware, but I never feel it's wise to assume.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I've seen it below. It's as I've said. The partition is active so it cannot be formatted.



You don't know that. I've brought back quite a few machines from the brink in the past. The users had obviously been seriously into pr0n and had taken no precautions whatsoever. There are means to remove such trojans, browser hijacks and spyware, but it's never easy. It's usually much easier than reinstalling however, though if you're little or no computer knowledge, both tasks are equally difficult.



In basic terms ,formatting removes the file allocation table and rewrites it to effectively erase all of the data on the disk. The disk then becomes a new disk. This is why datas is referred to as being "lost" rather than being destroyed or deleted, because it is there, but you can no longer access it. New files will be written over the old data, which is treated as free space. Restarting your PC after this will give the message "missing operating system" and nothing else. To render the PC usable you will need to resintall the OS again from scratch. Once reinstalled you will need to reinstall the drivers for your hardware, reinstall your programs and reconfigure the OS to suit your needs. If you don't feel up to such a task I suggest that you seek the assistance of a professional, or go down the route of trying to "exorcise" the malware from your system.



Yea, but When The Person (myself) doesn't have the money to spend onn 75 dollar Sertciuty Suites, then, Formatting is the only answer.

So, One Person tells me just to format,Several anyhow, and then Cara tells me, if I format, I will have to re-install the OS anyhow? Makes No Sense. If I have to re-nistall the OS anyhow, why do they give you two choicens anyhow,amkes no sense :inquisitive:

Just going to format it Tomarrow (Sunday) and see what turns out..

[doc_bean]

So, One Person tells me just to format,Several anyhow, and then Cara tells me, if I format, I will have to re-install the OS anyhow? Makes No Sense. If I have to re-nistall the OS anyhow, why do they give you two choicens anyhow,amkes no sense :inquisitive:

I'm not quite sure how you got the idea that you can format without losing every single thing on that HD partition (including the OS) but just get that out of your head. It's an illusion and a dangerous one at that (you 'll end up more losing than you'd expect or you'll mess up your system even more).

While I consider reformatting a pretty standard operation, Caravel might have a point, you shouldn't mess with what you don't know/understand.

If you're going to go ahead anyway, make sure you don't put the Windows cd in while running windows and then just install. You have to boot from the Windows cd.

[caravel]

Yea, but When The Person (myself) doesn't have the money to spend onn 75 dollar Sertciuty Suites, then, Formatting is the only answer.

Not "security suites". Every tool/method used would have been absolutely free and easily downloadable from the net. Anyway you seem set on formatting so go ahead.


So, One Person tells me just to format,Several anyhow, and then Cara tells me, if I format, I will have to re-install the OS anyhow? Makes No Sense. If I have to re-nistall the OS anyhow, why do they give you two choicens anyhow,amkes no sense :inquisitive:

If you format, you lose all data. This means you'll need to reinstall everything. How can I make myself any clearer?

Resintalling the OS over the top of your existing OS is not a clean install. Corrupted windows files will be replaced, the registry won't be touched and all of your programs and the malware will still be intact. It will also probably remove your security updates, so you'll be in a worse situation than that which you were in before. These type of reinstalls are also prone to crashing.

Formatting and reinstalling, will first remove your old windows, the registry, your programs, your files, the malware... everything. When you reinstall windows it will be a new, clean install with the malware gone, but also your programs, files and personalisations gone. You will need to reinstall these.


Just going to format it Tomarrow (Sunday) and see what turns out..

Good luck.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Not "security suites". Every tool/method used would have been absolutely free and easily downloadable from the net. Anyway you seem set on formatting so go ahead.



If you format, you lose all data. This means you'll need to reinstall everything. How can I make myself any clearer?

Resintalling the OS over the top of your existing OS is not a clean install. Corrupted windows files will be replaced, the registry won't be touched and all of your programs and the malware will still be intact. It will also probably remove your security updates, so you'll be in a worse situation than that which you were in before. These type of reinstalls are also prone to crashing.

Formatting and reinstalling, will first remove your old windows, the registry, your programs, your files, the malware... everything. When you reinstall windows it will be a new, clean install with the malware gone, but also your programs, files and personalisations gone. You will need to reinstall these.



Good luck.


Don't need to make yourself any clearer, I understood this Days ago

I give up. No Idea at all how to format my comp. Abousltey No Bloody Idea how. Yea got my Xp Disc, but I can't seem to boot it up, from the Disc. I can't re-install it, won't work there ethier, don't got a clear set of directions, Xp directions are confusing enough.

[Oaty]

Your Bios is not setup to bootup from the disc.

Restart your computer and hit f1 as it is booting up. Then change it to read the cd before reading the hard disk on bootup.

If that doesnt work hit the pause/break button on bootup so you can visibly read the instructions to see wich key to hit to accesss the bios

[caravel]

Don't need to make yourself any clearer, I understood this Days ago

Sorry but if you understood days ago, then why are you still totally unsure and asking the same questions, after the whole process has been explained time and again? You reject advice and believe that you need to format, then you return here because you don't know how to format an HDD. If you have no clue as to booting from the WinXP CDROM or formatting an HDD, then I would advise you again to seek the assistance of a professional.


I give up. No Idea at all how to format my comp. Abousltey No Bloody Idea how. Yea got my Xp Disc, but I can't seem to boot it up, from the Disc. I can't re-install it, won't work there ethier, don't got a clear set of directions, Xp directions are confusing enough.

Well... Again, you "understood", "days ago" yet you have "no Idea at all how to format" your HDD.

You need to place the WinXP CDROM in your CDROM drive and reboot your PC. When your initial boot splash screen appears you will need to hit either DEL or F2, depending on which type of BIOS you have, to enter the CMOS setup. You then need to go to, usually, the 'BIOS features' menu and alter the boot sequence. Changing options is usually done via the page up/page down keys or the +/- keys. Your BIOS will tell you near the bottom of the screen. You need to place the CDROM device at the top of the list, which may looK something like this.

IDE0
CDROM
DISABLED
DISABLED

You will need to change it to look like this:

CDROM
IDE0
DISABLED
DISABLED

Then you need to exit saving changes. The system will then boot from the WinXP CDROM. A message will appear "Hit any key to boot from the CDROM..." or something to that affect. Do so. The WinXP setup will launch, you will see a blue screen with device drivers loading across the bottom. Wait until this finishes then you will see the options. You need to format the entire partition in NTFS and install WinXP.

Before you do that though, you need to download Windows XP service pack 2 and burn it onto a CDR. As soon as your clean XP installation is finished you'll need to install that before you connect to the internet. If your WinXP CDROM has already got SP2 integrated then disregard the above.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Sorry but if you understood days ago, then why are you still totally unsure and asking the same questions, after the whole process has been explained time and again? You reject advice and believe that you need to format, then you return here because you don't know how to format an HDD. If you have no clue as to booting from the WinXP CDROM or formatting an HDD, then I would advise you again to seek the assistance of a professional.



Well... Again, you "understood", "days ago" yet you have "no Idea at all how to format" your HDD.

You need to place the WinXP CDROM in your CDROM drive and reboot your PC. When your initial boot splash screen appears you will need to hit either DEL or F2, depending on which type of BIOS you have, to enter the CMOS setup. You then need to go to, usually, the 'BIOS features' menu and alter the boot sequence. Changing options is usually done via the page up/page down keys or the +/- keys. Your BIOS will tell you near the bottom of the screen. You need to place the CDROM device at the top of the list, which may looK something like this.

IDE0
CDROM
DISABLED
DISABLED

You will need to change it to look like this:

CDROM
IDE0
DISABLED
DISABLED

Then you need to exit saving changes. The system will then boot from the WinXP CDROM. A message will appear "Hit any key to boot from the CDROM..." or something to that affect. Do so. The WinXP setup will launch, you will see a blue screen with device drivers loading across the bottom. Wait until this finishes then you will see the options. You need to format the entire partition in NTFS and install WinXP.

Before you do that though, you need to download Windows XP service pack 2 and burn it onto a CDR. As soon as your clean XP installation is finished you'll need to install that before you connect to the internet. If your WinXP CDROM has already got SP2 integrated then disregard the above.

No Cara, because I didn't know it was going to be this confusing,of course.


I try that later then...

[TosaInu]

http://www.hitmanpro.nl/hitmanpro/index.php?lang=en

A Dutch site, but the program supports English. This is basically a manager for several spyware/virus removal tools. Instead of having to launch and update each (free or commercial) tool, this program does it all for you. Of course, a scan is going to take some time.

I've been using it for a while.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Thans Tosa, I try that out now :) :)