Insulated (secure) file copy suggestions

[CarvedDuck]

Hi All,

The past few weeks my netbook has started locking up, needing the battery removed to get it started again. It most often happens in Firefox when writing to the HHD, but not always.

I have cloned the HDD to a new Seagate and installed that and the problem continues, so it is not the HDD. I have all current updates for everything here.

So, I am thinking it might be one of two things. I have picked up a Virus/Trojan/Worm or it is a hardware fault.

I am thinking of buying a new netbook and give up on this one. If I do that, and it is a Virus/Trojan/Worm, there is a good risk of transferring it over to the new netbook when I copy a bunch of data files from my back up USB HDD.

Any thoughts on how I can copy stuff to the new netbook without risk of bringing malicious stuff with them?

I am thinking maybe copy the files to a Cloud Account then copy from there back to the new netbook. The thinking there is that unless the actual files contain the Virus etc, any other sectors etc on the backup HDD that may contain the Virus code will not be transferred.

Thanks for any and all practical suggestions.

 

[mitchell65]

First off, if you hink you may have a virus, what anti virus are you running and is it up to date?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I am thinking maybe copy the files to a Cloud Account then copy from there back to the new netbook. The thinking there is that unless the actual files contain the Virus etc, any other sectors etc on the backup HDD that may contain the Virus code will not be transferred.

Maybe I am missing something.

How would using the cloud possibly help?

My understanding of viruses/trojans etc is that they reside in files on the hard drive, not in sectors per se. Not on bare metal, but in files that happen to be located on those sectors.

So if you have malware, it is in files and would be transferred to the cloud. And then from the cloud back to your computer.

The way to get rid of the malware is to attack it directly by deleting or cleansing those infected files. The cloud wouldn't help.

Maybe I am dead wrong and stand to be corrected.

Or maybe I don't understand your method?

 

[CarvedDuck]

Thanks, I am using Security Essentials and it runs daily and checks for updates before the scan, so I am sure it is up to date.

@ignat
I am not current with modern malware, but have been programming for 35+ years and the last time I messed with virus protection (project for a customer) there were some that embedded themselves in the first few sectors of any storage devices it could find.

I will not go into the actual process of activation as no telling who is reading this stuff. Suffice to say that without the infected sectors, the virus attached to the files was inert.

Copying to the Cloud would indeed copy the dormant infection, but not the infected sectors. So, copying back from the Cloud, the file would have the dormant part of the infection, but no way to run as the infected sectors are missing.

But -- as I said, it has been a long time since I messed with sleuthing Viruses, so methods may be a lot more sophisticated these days.

If the virus is attached to the file and it is complete and operable, you are correct, it would come back intact from the Cloud. But that's why I am asking here to see if there is a better way. Not suggesting the Cloud approach is prefect or would even work. If I knew that, I would not be asking.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I guess you are talking about something like a boot sector virus?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...ps-virus/d56dbb38-b0c4-4e39-a6b0-8c65f85849ec

I think boot sectors can be re-written, but I'm no authority on it or if that would necessarily get rid of a virus.

Have you run Malwarebytes or anything other than MSE?

Do you have any particular reason to think this problem is malware/virus related, as opposed to hardware?

If you bought a new netbook, it would presumably have a clean Windows installation with no viruses, boot sector or otherwise. Your known clean data files could then be transferred to it, without involving the cloud.

Or are you considering buying a new netbook with no Windows installation, and then cloning an existing install to it??