Nasty Virus. Can I copy to external hard drive?

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ringway

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My son has a bad virus on his laptop (the last time he'll let his mates use it I suspect).

Countless pop ups and now the dreaded one that has taken over the machine. Can't even alter firewall settings etc.

I think this means a trip to our local computer shop.

However, he has a lot of important pictures and video (some of our much loved recently departed Collie) and course work etc on the machine.

If I (am able to) copy his contents on to my external hard drive (in case he has to have a full wipe clean of his system) will I pass on the infection?

TIA.

Paul.
 
Is it coming up as security Tool alert?

One of those "We have found 200 viruses, trojans etc.. Please subscribe and we'll remove them for you" sort of things.

I refuse to click on any part of it until I know what the score is.

Thanks.

Paul.
 
Virus

Try system restore to an earlier date when things were ok. Or try removing all cookies and temporary files. Sounds like they want to sell you something and they are scaring you into believing you have all these problems.
 
Virus cont

Oh yes you can always start in 'safe mode' to save all your files. Safe mode is found on one of the 'F' keys on initial start up but varies on different computers.
 
boot up in safe mode and try cleaning the PC using malwarebytes. (download it on another pc if necessary and copy it over using a memory stick or something)
 
go to this site The home of Spybot-S&D! - download Search & Destroy. Search for updates & download/install them. It costs nothing & is extremely effective - finds stuff the likes of Norton can't. Not the best at safeguarding, but certainly one of the best at removing all manner of nasties.

This is guaranteed safe software with millions upon millions of downloads and nothing hidden.

Would be interested to know how it worked on your machine!

I downloaded yesterday for my wife's laptop (Norton "protected" it claims). S&D found about 20 variants of malware & deleted all.
 
If you do put your files on an external device, remember to scan them thoroughly before using them or transferring them to a 'clean' machine.
 
Safe mode is F8 (bios varies with PC, safe mode is windows so doesn't).

As above try spybot and malwarebytes, pretty sure both and be can be installed and run in safe mode.
 
go with what Sp!ke says.

Get hold of Malwarebytes - make sure you download it from malwarebytes.org and not one of the hundreds of sites claiming to be hosting the 'latest version' etc

Once you have downloaded it, copy it onto the desktop of your machine but don't run it just yet....

restart the computer in 'safe mode with networking' and then install Malwarebytes.

Once installed, it will connect to the internet and download the latest version of the program - allow it to do that and it will then c=scan your computer.

When the scan is complete, just follow the on screen instructions and it should delete all of the infected files
 
go to this site The home of Spybot-S&D! - download Search & Destroy. Search for updates & download/install them. It costs nothing & is extremely effective - finds stuff the likes of Norton can't. Not the best at safeguarding, but certainly one of the best at removing all manner of nasties.

This is guaranteed safe software with millions upon millions of downloads and nothing hidden.

Would be interested to know how it worked on your machine!

I downloaded yesterday for my wife's laptop (Norton "protected" it claims). S&D found about 20 variants of malware & deleted all.

This should work. Then a decent antivirus (free ones are fine, like freeav), then automatic updates on.

If something says you have 200 viruses or the like, it almost certainly lies, never click anything on the pop-up, close it from task manager.

Always be very, very suspicious.
 
malwarebytes official site is www.malwarebytes.org and it is the best way to clear an infected machine. Run in safe mode if necessary, do a full scan, then reboot, then a full scan again in normal mode, then update your antivirus software (AVG 9.0 is my recommendation) set it as paranoid as possible then scan all your memory sticks, hard drives, ipods, phones etc.
 
go to this site The home of Spybot-S&D! - download Search & Destroy.

a lot of the virus infections will stop you downloading/running Spybot or any of the other known applications - that's why you may need to download them on another machine.

If you have kids who are incapable of using any common sense whilst on the internet (approximately 99% of them, including ours fall into that bracket) then it's worth keeping a copy of the malwarebytes installer handy :)
 
a lot of the virus infections will stop you downloading/running Spybot or any of the other known applications - that's why you may need to download them on another machine.

If you have kids who are incapable of using any common sense whilst on the internet (approximately 99% of them, including ours fall into that bracket) then it's worth keeping a copy of the malwarebytes installer handy :)
Also worth pre-installing it - as Andy says some viruses block installers. My son had fun fixing my sister laws PC (via remote access - she's in New Orleans) becuase of one of those. Took a lot of manual registry editing to get it to a point where something would run and remove everthing (safe mode can be tricky remotely if you have to get people out of bed to press F8 for you :D)
 
Many Thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate it.

Thanks to Alfie07 for the pm and resulting phone advice.

Malwarebytes was the cure and I may well run search and destroy through the machine too. :thumb:

One problem was that the machine wouldn't enable the security centre to be switched on - "The security centre service cannot be started".

I cured this problem using the advice below from a Vista forum.

Click on 'run' (it's in accessories), type *services.msc* in the box,
then OK.

When the list of service's window opens, check to see that 'Security
Center' and 'Security Accounts' are both set to start Automatically. You
can do that by right clicking on the line and choosing properties.
Reboot/restart your computer and check to see if it's now working
properly.



Thanks again. :thumb:

Paul.
 
Many Thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate it.

Thanks to Alfie07 for the pm and resulting phone advice.

Malwarebytes was the cure and I may well run search and destroy through the machine too. :thumb:

One problem was that the machine wouldn't enable the security centre to be switched on - "The security centre service cannot be started".

I cured this problem using the advice below from a Vista forum.

Click on 'run' (it's in accessories), type *services.msc* in the box,
then OK.

When the list of service's window opens, check to see that 'Security
Center' and 'Security Accounts' are both set to start Automatically. You
can do that by right clicking on the line and choosing properties.
Reboot/restart your computer and check to see if it's now working
properly.



Thanks again. :thumb:

Paul.


May I recommend Acronis? Backups are a good idea:)
 
I would recomend that every PC user downloads the Malwarebytes program and keep it updated and run it once a week.
That way its always there - just in case.
Its sometime the only thing that really does get rid of ALL the nasties.
 

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