Want to zero format HD, reinstall windows 7 to ensure virus is gone

I have been trying to rid my wife's laptop of a Trojan rootkit called Trojan:DOS/Alureon.e. This thing just won't go away no matter what I have tried. It keeps popping up and getting captured by my virus software (Windows Security Essentials) but that software can't remove it. I've tried a bunch of other stuff to get rid of it to no avail.

I tried to do a recovery from my Lenovo recovery partition. That failed and left me with a blinking cursor at boot. I've since reinstalled Windows but ended up with three partitions somehow (one is the old recover partition, not sure what the other one is but it might be another copy of the OS?).

Anyway, I am totally sick of wasting time so I want to do a wipe of the HD and then install Win 7 again. I have flash drive that is executable and has my Win 7 Ultimate installation CD copied to it. It was an upgrade disk but I am pretty sure it will work to install from scratch. What is the best way to go about doing this to rid myself of this rootkit? Clearly the standard reinstall from my installation disk didn't do the job.

My thinking is zero format the drive, then install Win 7 from the flash drive. That would get me the cleanest possible setup, correct? Anything else I should know? Thx!

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

If you delete the old partition during the reinstall and let Windows create a new one that should be sufficient, but if you're really paranoid about wiping the hard drive you can clean it using Diskpart.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Before you try and install from your USB drive you need to check that your BIOS supports it as some of the older ones don't.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

seavixen32 said:

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

If you delete the old partition during the reinstall and let Windows create a new one that should be sufficient, but if you're really paranoid about wiping the hard drive you can clean it using Diskpart.

Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command

Before you try and install from your USB drive you need to check that your BIOS supports it as some of the older ones don't.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

I can install from USB as that is how I ended up with the current working version of ultimate on the laptop. So, if I use clean all then I should be able to install windows from the USB with no trace of the virus? Any chance it could still be there? I don't want to have to do this again.

Clean All will do the job, but be aware it can take a long time depending how big the hard drive is.

As I explained, just deleting the old partitions and reinstalling Windows should get rid of the virus, but you are the one that must decide what you are going to do.

seavixen32 said:

Clean All will do the job, but be aware it can take a long time depending how big the hard drive is.

As I explained, just deleting the old partitions and reinstalling Windows should get rid of the virus, but you are the one that must decide what you are going to do.

Thanks, do you think there is any chance I could delete the two partitions (not my C:) without reinstalling windows and have that solve my problem? It is unclear to me exactly where this virus is residing on the laptop. I appreciate the advice.

EDIT: one other question, should I unlicense Win 7 and Office 2010 before wiping? Or will the activate OK again without doing that?

If you think the virus is on one of the partitions then yes, you can delete them without affecting the Windows partition providing one of them is not the System Reserved partition as that will hold the boot record.

Personally, I think a complete clean install that includes wiping the whole drive is your best bet. You say you don't want to do it again so why try and take a shortcut?

Providing you have the product keys for Windows and Office they should activate OK when you reinstall -there's no requirement to unlicense them because you are reinstalling to the same computer.

Backup anything important to you before you start just in case.