Solved Reinstalling after hackers corrupted my PC.

[Lostindigital]

HI Guys, I have a couple of questions. A scam group known as Microsoft mytechgurus went rife on my wife's PC today after I let them remote logon to "fix" a Windows registration issue I had. Stupid me. I've reinstalled windows home premium and her D drive as reinstalled as it was before, complete with her folders and files. Previously, a reinstall would have placed these folders/files in Windows.old. In fact, Windows.old won't completely delete (even after changing the permission settings for each folder). Now I'm nervous that there is still lurking files that will call these guys up and allow them back into the PC. I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions or experiences with this so I can assure myself the PC is clean. Cheers all.

 

[gregrocker]

The correct approach would have been to run a Malwarebytes and then System Restore to before the attack.

But since you reinstalled make sure you got it perfect following the same steps as in Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7.

If a windows.old folder exists then you didn't actually do a Clean Reinstall since the partition wasn't even formatted, likely the disk wasn't even booted. You should boot the disk to do a Custom Clean Install Windows 7 using the Drive Options in Step 7 to delete all partitions and create new as you wish, or just click Next to let the installer do it for you.

If you want it left the way you did it (wrong) then you can delete windows.old using Disk Cleanup found in Start>All Programs>Accessories>System Tools.

 

[Lostindigital]

HI Greg, thanks so much for a great detailed tutorial. I really appreciate the effort and time you spent putting that together. I did see from your instruction that I missed some areas in the process so I will reinstall again tonight from the DVD. Many thanks again for a great support article. Have a good day. Cheers.

Greg, one more quick Q: would there be a particular W7 book you might suggest I could study/reference in learning the inner working of W7. I'm looking at "W7 Inside Out" and I know Microsoft has study manuals for a few hundred dollars if you're looking for accreditation, but I just thought I'd ask you the Q. Our household has three networked PCs and a laptop at my office. I enjoy the technical knowledge and wanted to delve deeper with it. Thx.

 

[gregrocker]

I suggest the tutorials section here where we know Win7 the best since beta.

Win7 Inside Out looks pretty good, too.

Keep us posted on how it goes.

 

[DocBrown]

Hey Lostindigital,

If SevenForums Tutorials were in book form they would be rated Number One since the 2008 Alpha release of win7.

Plus these Tutorials keep growing and evolving daily, weekly, monthly as the members participate in the thread