Defraging out a virus?

HJA said:

I had never heard of this. A guy at work let his AV expire and then clicked where he shoudn't have. Outlook starts crashing. Installed new AV and scanned. Found a nasty. Outlook still acting strange. Tried some fixes but no go. Searched for outcmd.dat file for a fix I found online but search could not locate. A guy at the comm college where I'm taking classes said to defrag and that will pop out any hidden nasty stuff. Tried it and it worked! A few more nasty bits destroyed. Searched again for outcmd.dat and this time I found it. Renamed to outcmd.old and rebooted. Started Outlook and all is well. Anyone else heard of defragging to dig up virus / malware?

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Well, I'm just guessing that as the files are accessed during the defrag they are also being brought to the attention of the resident AV. I don't know why that would be different then doing a full disk scan with the AV.

Defragmenting might make it easier for the anti-virus/malware remover to find the file, but I've never heard of it removing any sort of malware.

If you're having trouble with your anti-virus program you might want to take a look at some of the more efficient ones such as:

Free Editions:
Microsoft Security Essentials
Avast 5 Free Edition

Paid:
G-DATA
ESET NOD 32

For more: http://www.av-comparatives.org

HJA said:

notsograymatter said:

Defragmenting might make it easier for the anti-virus/malware remover to find the file, but I've never heard of it removing any sort of malware.

If you're having trouble with your anti-virus program you might want to take a look at some of the more efficient ones such as:

Free Editions:
Microsoft Security Essentials
Avast 5 Free Edition

Paid:
G-DATA
ESET NOD 32

For more: AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Welcome to AV-Comparatives.org

It didn't remove it but brought it out so the AV found it. I think someone clicked on something they shouldn't have but no admissions are forthcoming.

It sounds like the file made it to your hard drive but then when a program tried to access it, it finally found the infected file. That could be a problem, as you should really be able to remove viruses the instant they hit your HDD. Download Microsoft Security Essentials :)

I used to have a similar case, back when I Was offline and couldnt update my anti virus, this one niggling little trojan used to crash defraggler instantly, it would refuse to move during full defrags, either the program locked up, or XP did.

While AVG would just sit there complaining about a trojan that It couldnt do anything about.

Although this was on an old version of defraggler, that small glitch has probably been fixed indefinitely, program now has a rule such as, "Well screw you" then moves onto the next file.
ah, I just found it amusing thought I'd share it.