A lot of trouble with Windows 7

Bare Foot Kid · 04 Mar 2011

MacGyvr said:

Bare Foot Kid said:

Hello msy199623, welcome to Seven Forums!

The only true way to get completely rid of most viruses is to completely wipe the entire HDD and do a clean install,

Without any doubt, the most insane piece of advice I've read since my first visit to this board, and I don't even care if my saying so gets me kicked off. I make my living removing viruses from computers, several per week, and have NEVER had to wipe a machine to get rid of one. This user screwed himself over by "upgrading" his Windows on top of an already existing installation. Yes, he needs to wipe and reload, but not because of the virus.

I'm not at all concerned over your opinion, as is said, everyone has one; though one thing is certain no matter what you say, no-one can ever be 100% positive a virus is gone and I don't care what tools you use to supposedly 'remove' it.

Bare Foot Kid · 04 Mar 2011

Tepid said:

About one of the links posted by BFK above regarding Secure Erase....

I just want to point out that,,,, DBAN, unless something has changed, would not be approved for use by NIST as it does not utilize the Secure Erase feature.

Which is why I recommend completely and only, secure full hard drive sanitation is HDDErase

According to National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-88 [PDF], the only method of software-based data sanitation must be one that utilizes a hard drive's Secure Erase commands.

I just used that link to give members/guests an idea what a secure erase is, the preferred method I post is booting to diskpart and running the clean all command from there.

Tepid · 04 Mar 2011

No Problem BFK, I just want to make sure that those who read it understand what it is they are reading, Cause they leave a lot of info out of there and also state that, the best software on the market for sanitation is DBAN,, which is completely false, akin to an out right lie. Just because millions use it, does not constitute it being the best.

as I stated though earlier, unless something has changed and they are utilizing the Secure Erase Feature of the firmware on the drive itself. But i don't think they (DBAN) do.

So, my posts were not directed at you, or what you posted per se. Just additional info.

Golden · 04 Mar 2011

Bare Foot Kid said:

The only true way to get completely rid of most viruses is to completely wipe the entire HDD and do a clean install

I completely agree. The ONLY guarantee you have of a completely clean system is a complete re-installation. It is also in many cases, the easiest method : you only have to visit a malware removal forum to follow the many, many complicated steps that some users are required to follow to remove a particularly dangerous piece of malware, to appreciate that a clean install (preferable with a full format) is the quickest and surest way.

Regards,
Golden

Bare Foot Kid · 04 Mar 2011

Tepid said:

So, my posts were not directed at you, or what you posted per se. Just additional info.

No probs mate, all's well!

Coke Robot · 04 Mar 2011

Wow, if that's a virus, that's what one might call,"immensely screwed up". :) You say that your screen resolution got knocked down from its default and your HDMI cable is being reported as DVI; if you can, try to check your monitor on a different system an/or the video card if the card is a dedicated card and not onboard.

I'm not sure if that can be a virus unless you somehow got infect with a colonel-cluster-flock virus. That is amazing. Just out of curiosity, what anti-viruses did you use to check the hard drive with? I'd recommend against freeware anti-viruses since they might not have as good detection as paid versions. But, I believe Kaspersky has a freeware malware detector software, you might try that if you haven't already.

msy199623 · 05 Mar 2011

Thanks for all the help guys :)

I used Norton, Microsoft Security Essentials and Malwarebytes to look for the virus.

I am able to add the custom resolution in Nvidia Control Panel and it works, now my screen resolution is 1920x1080 60Hz.

But the problem is, in Nvidia Control Panel, it still reports my HDMI cable as DVI. I might give other screens a test later and come back with the result.

Also before this virus attack, my Nvidia Control Panel recognises my monitor, now it just calls it "Digital Display".

Like I said, I formatted C:/ completely and installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 before.

The boot screen is still Vista's but I don't really mind that as long as the system can work properly.

Thanks guys!

Bare Foot Kid · 05 Mar 2011

Be sure to post back here to keep us informed.

msy199623 · 05 Mar 2011

ok I tested the monitor on another computer, the other computer also recognises the monitor as "Digital Display", and thinks the HDMI cable is DVI

maybe monitor's EDID is corrupted?

msy199623 · 05 Mar 2011

One other problem, the resolution keeps on resetting to 1280x720 everytime I restart.

HELP?!