Hello Emie,
In view of your concerns I suggest you check out the Hard Drive Eraser from
http://www.killdisk.com/. The free version should do the job for you. A
search of the popular download sites should turn up similar programs. Prior
to formatting you, along with the lady, might want to 'salvage' and save to
CD any personal data she may have on the drive worth keeping. Either scan
prior to saving or the CD can be scanned for viruses at any time.
Sven Swanson, Sr.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Emie" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 5:12 PM
Subject: [PCSOFT] Trojans & Worms shared nest
Backdoor.IRC.Aladinz.F, W32.ASpam.Trojan, Welchia, Swen, Worm_AGobot.Av
live here!
I'm trying to revive a hopeless case laptop that turned to be a mating hole
for viruses, spywares, malwares, worms (ugh!) and trojans. This is just
unreal to me. The owner, a poor mis-informed lady (an elementary teacher)
was told on January 2003 when she bought the unit that the laptop already
had a virus protection and a mcaffee something firewall . Worse, she said
the salesman never mentioned to her about updating the anti-virus. duh! So,
since the beginning of 2003 she had been on the internet, with only the
initial virus protection that came with the system.
About September/October timeframe, her laptop began to slow down and "took
time to boot up and Windows quit doing the auto shutdown." Towards the end
of the year, the laptop was hopelessly crawling, very slow and oftentime,
locks up. Few days ago, a timer popped up on screen (this is also the time
she called me) with a warning that "the system is shutting down" and she
couldn't do anything about it but to reboot, only to be shutdown again.
I hooked up this baby up to our network and went to TrendMicro's webssite.
TrendMicro's free Housecall online virus scanning service identified 535
files infected and was able to clean all but 32 files "uncleanable." I
believe these 32 files have something to do with the Registry and I don't
think I am interested in doing battle with these electro-pests in the
Registry. So, my question.... I am assuming that this laptop's operating
system is just so badly infected with these viruses that I recommended a
full format of her 10 GB HD and reload O/S and Office 97 (and one school
grading software.) Is there a special way of doing this reformatting to
make sure that all these pests go away and don't hide anywhere, like the
MBR? Is there any precautionary steps I need to take during the formatting
to ensure that all the pests on this laptop are either destroyed or
eradicated? I have yet to find out the payloads of the viruses, worms and
trojans left on the hard drive and the MOs they each take.
Any help extended will be greatly appreciated! (WinBook J401 15" from
MicroCenter, Intel P4- 2.0GHz, WinXP-Home, 256 MB PC2100, 10 GBHD, DVD/CRW
Combo, Internet via dial up conn.) Thank you very much!
Emie DelRosario
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Gillett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 1:54 AM
Subject: Re: [PCSOFT] Trojan horse virus
> "Trojan horses" are an entire category of viruses, and the exact removal
> instructions will depend on which one you've got.
>
> Actually, it's TWO entire categories....
> Traditionally, a trojan horse was a useful- (or at least
harmless-)looking
> program which carried along some mal behabiour as a covert side-effect.
> Rather than a worm spreading itself, it relied on curious or acquisitive
> users to download and install it.
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