If your system was infected with a virus, would you ?

[JordanJP]

Would you, attempt to disinfect and clean or would you just format and reinstall Windows ?

I guess it depends on how serious the situation is, but isn't reinstalling always best due to the fact it wipes everything clean ?

 

[TheSchaft]

Would you, attempt to disinfect and clean or would you just format and reinstall Windows ?

I guess it depends on how serious the situation is, but isn't reinstalling always best due to the fact it wipes everything clean ?

Reinstalling will definitely cure the problem, it just depends on how long ago you imaged the system.

What I would do is clean the infection, save any newer data files, note any new programs that I installed since the last image was made, then recover from the last image.

 

[whs]

In my book, the best is to take frequent images and set back to an image - if necessary to an image of the early days of the installation. That beats a reinstall in any case.
I just reinstalled my wife's Vista because it was 3 years old and had accumulated a number of quirks. But what a pain to make all the updates. Fortunately she uses hardly any programs (just AOL and Word), but it still took me 2 days to be back at SP2.
In contrast, I reinstalled my Win7 yesterday from a February image (I went this far back because I was not sure when I had caught the nasty). That took less than 1 hour from the image including the updates since then. Fortunately I have a seperate data partition so I did not have to worry about my files.

 

[malexous]

I'd attempt to disinfect just to see if I could succeed or at least seem to. Then I would revert back to the image I have. (Install of Windows 7 + Office 2007 + updates up-to that date)

On a regular basis we used to get infected (likely from my dad and IE6) but Norton seemed to always catch them. Since then we have used other av programs due to the resources Norton needed at the time. That's why I would bother to see if I can disinfect: the one chance I had, I didn't know enough at the time.

 

[thathagat]

If your system was infected with a virus
Would you, attempt to disinfect and clean or would you just format and reinstall Windows ?

if time is not an issue:
1.run scan with several scanners/hjt/cf etc
2.bootable rescue av disk

if time is a major constraint:
restore clean image

I guess it depends on how serious the situation is, but isn't reinstalling always best due to the fact it wipes everything clean ?

but its an unwelcome hassle
if i have to format due to a nasty virus/rootkit then i woud prefer Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN")
Darik's Boot And Nuke | Hard Drive Disk Wipe and Data Clearing

 

[nate42nd]

I agree with the poster above. You CAN get a system clean without re-installing. If you have an image from a week ago...why not use it? However if you don't.....you can run several cleaners, spend several hours and get a system clean. I have done it several times since I don't have a decent XP install disk and people ask me to clean their XP computers about once a week.

 

[Creer]

Would you, attempt to disinfect and clean or would you just format and reinstall Windows ?

I guess it depends on how serious the situation is, but isn't reinstalling always best due to the fact it wipes everything clean ?

There are few options:

1st - If I would have some free time, I could play for knowledge and just for fun, try to clean computer.
2nd - I don't have time for these type of games so I'll use my (one of my backup image files) image backup and in 5-7 minutes I will have OS with previous state with all app and setup configuration.
3rd - I do format and reinstall Windows - very unlikely since I have image backup with every state of install process of Windows + other 3rd party app, so any time I can choose the best solution for me in any case.

Of course 2nd possibility is my choice

 

[smsff7]

I would try to clean it out, but most likly be unable to fix it so I would have to format and reinstall windows

PS: I don't have a img backup so I'd have to start all over

 

[Jacee]

smsff7, you can make an system image (backup) with Win7. It's best to put it on an external hard drive.

 

[TheSchaft]

I would try to clean it out, but most likly be unable to fix it so I would have to format and reinstall windows

PS: I don't have a img backup so I'd have to start all over

smsff7, you can make an system image (backup) with Win7. It's best to put it on an external hard drive.

I agree with Jacee. In Windows 7 making an image (and a one time burn of a recovery disk) is pretty easy.

On my big system, it takes two DVDs. On my laptop, I can get it to do it with a USB drive.

Much easier to go from an image than a fresh install, especially considering that you would have to go through all the updates.

 

[smsff7]

smsff7, you can make an system image (backup) with Win7. It's best to put it on an external hard drive.

I know I can make one, but I can't place it anywhere. I don't have the HDD space for it right now

 

[Jacee]

External, portable hard drives are getting bigger and the prices are dropping
Google

 

[smsff7]

External, portable hard drives are getting bigger and the prices are dropping
Google

Short on cash right now, but I know I can get a HDD from a friend next time I see him, but since I live so far away I don't see him that often

 

[manhunter2826]

Sometimes - I stress sometimes - even a system restore will put the system back to rights, depending on the severity of the virus/malware infection.

 

[Dinesh]

I'd attempt to remove the virus till I die. LOL

 

[Pixelpro]

Mild - AVG puts in virus vault... problem sorted...
Medium - Scan, Use custom virus protector (no-name)
high - System restore, delete source
Extra High - Restore , disconnect Internet, scan with multiple programs... remove source

 

[manhunter2826]

I'd attempt to remove the virus till I die. LOL

Lol, you would Dinesh Winner takes all

 

[HammerHead]

Cleaning OS Disk

I too would clean first if at all possible. Last Trojan I had imbedded itself on another disk (not the OS disk) and everytime I loaded a saved image it jumped right back on my OS. So cleaning first sounds good to me. I thought I would just add this in the discussion.

 

[D3ftOn3Z]

Cleaning and removing the infection would be my best option.