Windows 7 - Can't access hard drive

I got Windows Vista 32 bit on my laptop, but a worm W32.daprosy entered and then my OS crashed. I installed Windows 7 instead and my laptop worked perfectly.
The hard drive was now 12Gb free of 74.5G but I can't access my old files there since it was infected by W32.daprosy before. HELP! Can I still recover my files there? Or if not, is there any other way to delete the files there so I can put new files?

You need to format your hard drive. It's the safest course considering how you've got infected files on the hard drive. Since your MBR records are likely on the first partition with vista and all of the files, you should just completely wipe the hard drive and peform a clean installation. You can find a link to INSTALL in my signature. Keep in mind, this procedure will delete everything on your hard drive. If you don't have one already, you should really have an external hard drive for storage and backup.

Hello and welcome cielsky. We are glad to have you and as you can see this is a great place to find help.

notsograymatter is 100% correct. In your case that is the best way to go to be sure you got all the infection.

If you had files on the HD that are important and are haveing problems getting to them, you should get the HD out of your laptop and get a SATA to USB adapter and connect your drive to another PC via USB. You should be able to gain access and copy all your important files out.

Then replace and format.

Good luck

You can even use something like Hiren's boot disc to retrieve your files. That should work without any problems.

Bill

Oh my God, thank you for your replies. Hopefully, I can make this work over the weekend! If I still encounter some problems, I'm gonna count on you again. Thanks!

Hi cielsky

As stated above, the best solution is to reformat the Hard drive and then reinstall your operating system and apps.
If you need to recover some of your existing files before the re-installation, you could try the following (bear in mind that you may be copying the worm along with the infected files to your backup media. You will still need to clean those files before use):

1. Log into your Windows 7 Admin account
2. Browse to the applicable folder and select the files which you need to save
3. Save those onto some removable media, USB flash-drive etc (ideally the drive should be an empty one given that it is possible it will be infected during the transfer process)
4. When done, store the backup-up data in a safe place - do not copy the contents to another of your PC's as yet
5. Reinstall your OS on your PC
6. For the backup-up data - seek assistance on the recovery of the infected files (Hopefully some of the experts here will offer the best methods to assist you with the recovery). The general cleanup can be done with anti-virus tools however there are specialized tools (software) out there that will specifically address the issue that you have

Hope this helps in some way

Regards

i guess when you transfer the backup data to the removable media..you need to do a full scan of that removable media on different pc before you transfer back your backup data to your fresh install windows pc. suppost scan it with AVAST AV