Computer gurus, I need help.

[skydivr]

Great info learned a few new tricks thanks for the links.

Don't take the 'nuclear' option (reinstall) until after you've tried some of these ideas/advice. Frankly, I've only had to reinstall ONCE; I'm too stubborn to let a POS virus get the best of me! I get satisfaction fixing someone's machine that they gave up on get to the punks that bombed it out.

 

[Spectre]

ah, i see.

I keep the AntiVir Rescue CD, a couple different Linux LiveCDs, and also CloneZilla in my personal little "computer care pack". They have really helped me (and others) out over the years.

lol, actually making another snapshot of my Acer Aspire One with Clonezilla now.

 

[Mr Bogus]

Great info learned a few new tricks thanks for the links.

Don't take the 'nuclear' option (reinstall) until after you've tried some of these ideas/advice. Frankly, I've only had to reinstall ONCE; I'm too stubborn to let a POS virus get the best of me! I get satisfaction fixing someone's machine that they gave up on get to the punks that bombed it out.

and I am too lazy to fight them... (one of the benefits of a network server.. no user files get lost..

 

[Spectre]

...one of the benefits of a network server.. no user files get lost..

+1

it's amazing that with how cheap external drives and DVDs are now that people don't backup their stuff more. guess most people are just "too busy" and don't think about it until something goes missing.

with graphical sync programs for Windows like Icemirror and several others even computer novices can safely protect their data.

 

[Mr Bogus]

NAS drives rule..... no reason anyone with a router should not have one... things are cheap and pretty reliable..

 

[Zoinks!]

NAS drives rule..... no reason anyone with a router should not have one... things are cheap and pretty reliable..

Explain NAS drive, please. . . And thanks to all for the great advice. This is my last week of classes and then I'm out for about a month, so my laptop is just remaining off right now. I'm using my dad's for the things I need a computer for and on Wed. of next week I'll be giving these suggestions a try. Spectre, that sounds like a pretty promising solution, so hopefully it works as well as it sounds like it will, and I'll be sure to checkout malwarebytes as soon as I get it somewhere close to normal again. Thankfully I did purchase an external HD a few months ago when I noticed my computer starting to slow down a good bit and act a little weird from time to time. I'll just have to scan that too and make sure nothing got on there cause I did keep it connected a good bit. Thanks again to those who have given advice. I think with the help of this thread I should be able to clear it up without having to resort to re-formatting. I'll keep y'all posted and let you know if I have any other questions and how it turns out. I did stop using McAfee quite some time ago. It was on there before the first re-format, but I never put it back on. I've been using AVG ever since. But I am still missing some sort of malware protection and good protection against phishing. Does anyone know if Safari has good phishing protection? I know firefox is probably the favorite, but I never really liked it. If that's the best protection, then I'll use it, but I just never really liked the way it was set up.

 

[Mr Bogus]

NAS (network attached storage) in short , you can plug it into your router and take off... does not require a host computer or a computer at all (except to access)

You will find backup software with most (for files, not programs normally)

 

[WWJD]

Oh. My. Gosh. You are actually looking at the error message? ? ? HA! Just reinstall. The codes are pointless time wasters.

 

[Zoinks!]

NAS (network attached storage) in short , you can plug it into your router and take off... does not require a host computer or a computer at all (except to access)

You will find backup software with most (for files, not programs normally)

Gotcha. Thanks for the info.

Oh. My. Gosh. You are actually looking at the error message? ? ? HA! Just reinstall. The codes are pointless time wasters.

Well, as stated above, I'd much rather NOT have to re-install. I'd rather just clean it up and move on. I figured the specific codes wouldn't be much help, but thought I'd add them just in case. But if you had read the rest of this thread you would have realized there's a ton of good info in it that hopefully will save me the time and aggravation of formatting. You may not mind spending hours reinstalling, downloading, and setting up programs and spending who knows how much time searching the "driver downloads" page to find the ones that apply to you and then waiting for all those to download too. I, however, hated that the first time and I'm sure I'd hate it the second time, so in an effort to try to avoid all that I'm going to give some new found techniques a try and see what happens.

 

[WWJD]

over the last decade I've learned you can not clean everything properly. reinstalling CAN take much less time than diagnosing. and you are right... I didn't read the whole thread

 

[GoAWOL]

over the last decade I've learned you can not clean everything properly. reinstalling CAN take much less time than diagnosing. and you are right... I didn't read the whole thread

Gonna have to agree with WWJD here about reinstalling. You will never be sure that cleaned all of the the mess off of your machine unless you reinstall. Think about that for a minute....this may be a simple, irritating malware infection or you could have additional malicious software such as a keylogger installed that can capture personal/financial data. You will never know unless you wipe that puppy clean and start over from scratch.

As painful as it can be to reinstall some prior planning during the process can make the next time as easy as 1-2-3. Burn the drivers to a CD on a different machine along with the latest service pack for whatever OS you're using. Use anti-virus and host firewall software. Get some imaging software (Norton Ghost, selfimage) and image your completed operating system partition before connecting it to the internet. Do not connect your machine to the internet without all of the latest updates, patches, anti-virus software, and a host firewall. Configure your critical data to be saved to either a separate partition or a NAS. The next time you get an infection (which shouldn't be easy with updated patches, anti-virus software, and a host firewall) you can simply reinstall the saved image.

Oh, and try to get away from using IE as your primary browser.

 

[Mr Bogus]

over the last decade I've learned you can not clean everything properly. reinstalling CAN take much less time than diagnosing. and you are right... I didn't read the whole thread

boy aint this a fact...

I can re-image the drive with 3 minutes of work...

chasing bogus error messages, registry issues , and other "user" induced problems? impossible in some cases...

 

[Spectre]

boy aint this a fact...

I can re-image the drive with 3 minutes of work...

chasing bogus error messages, registry issues , and other "user" induced problems? impossible in some cases...

Very true.

I use Clonezilla to make images of all my systems. I love it. It's free, fast, and solid.

I have a tutorial that I've meant to put up on my website showing a simple backup and restore, but riding has taken most of my time lately.