The Dell tech assured me the "infections" were gone and that the added RAM
would do the trick, but I do trust your research. I've already bought the
extra 4 Gigs of RAM, so I guess I'll go ahead and install it and see if the
computer comes up to specs again. If not, we also bought a MAXTOR 700+ Gig
removable storage device. So, now that begs the question that, if I do
decide to reformat the hard drive, can I first safely clone the C: drive or
copy it out to the removable storage without also bringing over whatever is
currently slowing my computer to glacial pace?
----- Original Message -----
From: "Don Penlington" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 04, 2009 9:52 AM
Subject: Re: [PCSOFT] Internet Explorer pop-ups.
> Michael wrote:
>>a horribly =
>>sluggish system to the point of being intolerable. We're going to add RAM
>>=
>>(from 1 G to 4) and see if that speeds things up. >>
>
>
> That's like putting the ambulance at the foot of the cliff. Band-aid
> solutions like adding RAM won't fix existing problems, and most likely
> won't improve anything. Much better in the long run to fix the problem,
> even if the fix is as drastic as a reformat, rather than try to patch it
> over.
>
> Of course, if you've cloned your hard drive, then that's the quick and
> easy solution to any of these sorts of problems---but presumably you do
> not have that solution available to you.
>
> Save your money and reformat your hard drive. In many cases with that
> particular infestation, reports from many readers in several forums
> indicate that there's no effective alternative. As you delete the bad
> files they simply regenerate themselves with random names, so it's almost
> impossible to track them down. You'll end up spending many fruitless hours
> chasing your tail, all to little avail.
>
> In 3 cases I've seen of this family of malware (I don't think Antivirus
> 2009 is properly classified as a trojan) the only solution I found to work
> completely was to run a newly-updated Malwarebytes from a BartPE boot
> disk. That seemed to work quickly and efficiently. The update must be done
> on another computer.
>
> I'm not sure whether Malwarebytes would work if the nasty has already been
> partly removed, but it's worth trying---your Dell tech would doubtless
> have a boot disk from which to run it. (Or maybe he's already been down
> that road).
>
> Don Penlington
>
> "Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
> programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
> http://freepctech.com/rode
>
>
>
>
> E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.0.386)
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