Tuesday 22 December 2009

Calling All Malware Busters!

My old computer is not dying from old age as previously thought, but harbouring a Gremlin or two. Serves me right for claiming to have a PC like Fort Knox. For the first week it refused to send/receive emails and browse, AVG and Spybot scans found nothing but after a week, AVG is picking up Trojan Downloader.small.61.bw - there's practically no information on it at all, and I can't get rid. I don't mind losing the use of the old dear but I have an external hard-drive attached with 85GB of music and photos...is it likely to be infected too?

Right, who's gonna let me try out the external drive on their computer? ;-)

15 comments:

  1. Joanne, Let me know what you are planning to do to rid yourself of the curse. I may be able to help. Have you got my e mail address ? If not, send me a comment on the soapbox. KP

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  2. music and photos can not get infected. the virus may have changed them so that they do not work or make your computer break down if you want to look at them / listen to them. but they can not be infectious themselves.

    the only music format that might be infectious is .wma, because you can attach all kinds of shit to it. but i trust you don't use that shitty format.

    my advice:

    1. evacuate everything you need which is photo,music,movie but not wma or wmv to another drive than c:

    2. make a list of all the software you have installed and want to reinstall afterwards (on a piece of paper).

    3. format c: (always use the variant that takes more time because it also cleans the drive from file system errors which acumulate with time (nothing to do with the virus))

    4. reinstall windows

    5. put the evacuated files back to c:

    6. reinstall all the software you had.

    7. enjoy new, clean OS which probably runs much faster than it used to before you formatted.

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  3. ps: don't forget to get rid of all the runnable files on the external drive, because they might be infectious. like .exe, .jar, and stuff like that.

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  4. Keith/Olli,

    It seems to have left a lot of my programs unusable so I have no option but to re-install. Found the recovery disc, phew, never had to do this before, have not got a clue, but I'm sure I can't make it any worse.

    After painstakingly typing in all my bookmarks and email addresses to new laptop I've discovered I made a disc in case this ever happened...doh!

    Making list of programs now.

    My music files are a whole messed up hash of mps, m4a and wma. Always kept on external drive, hoping the wee trojan b*****d never got in there, lol.

    Did I mention my childhood fear of computers? It has come back. While doing a virus scan my mobile rang and I nearly shit myself :-D

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  5. malwarebytes anti-malware software

    http://www.malwarebytes.org/

    I have used this software on *top* of the corporate version of Norton anti-virus and cleaned multiple systems. It is very very effective.

    No need rebuild your system just yet....

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  6. What mikes said, try malwarebytes stuff, it works great and you might need to do it in safe mode or reboot a few times. It should take care of your problem.

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  7. mIKES/Mentok, thanks, I think i got rid of it but the computer was completely messed up. I don't trust that bloody computer now, restored the factory settings and giving it to a new home tomorrow.

    Pete, Smout talked me through the recovery, was a bit hairy as my pc has to sit upside down and had to use external cd drive...was scared of it uninstalling itself in the middle of it...lol

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  8. get rid of avg (get avira or avast)

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  9. Anon, AVG done me proud for the last 4 or 5 years along with Spybot, Adaware & Spywareguard...slightly overcrowded!

    Now I'm using a trial version of McAfee SecurityCentre...would I be mad to pay for it when it runs out?

    All recommendations greatly appreciated.

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  10. Got to be honest, I use AVG for general protection and spyware terminator / Spybot S&D for occasional sweeps. Then once a month, I run Eusing registry cleaner to keep the registry free of rubbish from the tat I am always evaluating.

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  11. Malwarebytes after a Trend Micro online scan (use the new engine) if that's still a choice.

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  12. Keith, by the time I get 5 years of Windows Updates added on again the malware will be back in :-) I thought I had got rid of old computer but my brother decided against it - can't really blame him, it sounds like a plane. Put Avira and Spybot on it to see how it goes.

    Captain Rob, it was too busted for online scans and didn't want to open some programs and emails. Other than that it was fine :-) I'm making a list of all these programs for the next time the swines attack!

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  13. AVG? If you could get Avira or Avast it would be better. Free edition of course.

    Spybot is good but heavy.

    Member mlKES said "malwarebytes". Indeed it is an excellent freeware which fights spywares, malwares etc....

    And you need an excellent freeware a soon as possible which will clean your computer. I talk about the freeware CCleaner http://www.ccleaner.com/
    And it will clear space on your hard disk.

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  14. Anon, my PC will soon be invincible with all this armor...I have regseeker to clean it, hope it's still a good choice :-)

    Thanks for all your help and Merry Christmas all! xo

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