Comments for Can a virus destroy my computer or hard drive?

Comment from Alex Young on 2009-10-09

2009-10-09T08:33:29Z

DEALING WITH INFECTIONS PART TWO
Now we have a clean up to date system so before you do anything else,ie before you visit the web,make a Disk image using your chosen programme. We can date this and it is your day one image. It is better than your manufacturers CD because it is up to date and contains your present programmes. You can delete the initial Disk image if you wish as that is of your old system.
Now you can use your PC and if you get an infection just restore from your external.
In order to keep up to date I make a note of any changes I make to my system and a keep this on a notepad document in My Documents.After say a month I will put the previous Disk Image on after moving that note pad document to the external along with any other updated files. When the month old disk image is in place I will apply all the changes I made in that month[with the help of the word pad ] update my security products and then take another disk image for use a month down the line. This way I believe I minimise software rot and I always have a recent clean disk image to fall back on.
Yes, it does entail some work but it gives great peace of mind. Never again will you be left with vital System 32 files in quarantine and wondering what to do ! Regards Alex {If I can do it anyone can

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Comment from Alex Young on 2009-10-09

2009-10-09T08:06:30Z

Hi, DEALING WITH INFECTIONS PART ONE
I think I have come up with a reasonable strategy for dealing with PC infections. In my opinion it is not worth the trouble of trying to clean them off both time wise and also you can never be completely sure that they have been totally eradicated.
So instead invest in an external hard drive, they are really affordable now and can serve more than one purpose [storing films or a music library for instance]
Next download a Disk Imaging programme.There are great free ones available. I use Macrium Reflect Free version which is very easy to use and reliable.
Make a disk image on to the external as a fall back. This will include everything on your PC.
Then make a backup on your documents and music etcetera although you have already got this in your full disk image.This documents back up is done by copying to your external and not via the Disk Image programme.
Now you have the fall back use your rescue CD or Windows disk to reinstall your system to when you bought it. Depending on your disk you may have to reinstall drivers as well so make sure you have that sorted.
Now comes the painful bit.You will need to reinstall all your programmes from the web or any disks you may have. You will also need to visit the Microsoft Updates site to bring all software up to date. This can entail several visits and a lot of time depending how old your PC is.
Next replace your documents from the external to your PC.
At this stage I usually run CCleaner to get rid of rubbish but that is just my preferance.

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Comment from stephanie lovell on 2009-09-05

2009-09-05T19:53:44Z

i scanned my computer and it says its infected but it can't get rid of it what do i do? it says its in archives

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Comment from bill on 2009-05-14

2009-05-14T18:40:22Z

"ATTENTION" "EARTHLINGS" "NEVER,NEVER,NEVER USE RESTORE ON YOUR COMPUTER,TURN IT OFF"If your computer gets even a smell of a virus it is saved on this section of drive and when you restore you also restore virus or malware!

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Comment from omadham on 2009-03-29

2009-03-29T17:11:43Z

My laptop is a windows vista. I was working normally on subtitle workshop when suddenly it said the the program had a problem and had to shut down. When I restarted the program, I had a black screen and I was unable to boot my computer. Now it would not even want to reinstall Vista and I get a message saying that my hard disk is dammaged. I don't understand what happened.

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A comment on: Can a virus destroy my computer or hard drive?

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Comment from Lauren on 2009-02-24

2009-02-24T21:18:41Z

I had the same thing happen with the cryptic 'warning' message and the inability to access or upgrade my Norton anti-virus software.
I had a virtual Symantec technician look at it and they thoroughly destroyed my system to the point where it was virtually inoperable... after that, I took it to a local shop and they are unable to wipe the HD and get rid of the virus so I do need a new drive. Before doing this, I had a computer person at my office try to fix it.
Vicious, ugly virus! Now if only people put their time and effort into the common good instead of hurting unsuspecting people the world would be much better off...

If "they are unable to wipe the HD", then I'd look for a different technician/shop. A virus should never do something to a hard drive that would render it un-wipable.

- Leo
25-Feb-2009

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Comment from Gwyn on 2008-11-11

2008-11-11T14:56:04Z

Many thanks for answering my query re your article a few days ago. A latte should be with you by now.

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Comment from Kenneth Crook on 2008-11-08

2008-11-09T06:06:11Z

Backup, Backup, Backup!!!

Once a month, after Microsoft updates on Tuesday, I use Acronis TrueImage to make a full image backup of my disk drive to an external disk drive. Weekly I make a backup to an external disk drive of my "MY Documents" folder. And during the week if I make any updates to documents I copy them to a USB pen drive. I keep several months of Acronis TrueImage backups so if necessary I can go back farther than the past backup if somehow some virus slipped through my anti-virus scans.

Reformating and reinstalling everything is like torture, and to be avoided at all costs. Acronis TrueImage is simple, easy, fast, and has saved me a couple of times.

PS: The virus I got seem to have come from geek sites I went to researching some problem.

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Comment from Mike Parsley on 2008-11-08

2008-11-09T05:26:50Z

Since XP hit the market I've managed to attract a virus on twelve or fifteen occasions. It's a price I pay for traveling to the dark side of the net. Over the years I've found that the virus's have become more complex and downright malicious,so please allow me to offer some points to consider in making your computer healthy again. With the exception of a couple of times I've found the only way to get rid of a virus is to reformat as indicated in the article. If you suspect that you have a virus DO NOT shut down your computer. I've had several infections that would't allow a reboot in safe mode and several that wouldn't allow a reboot at all. The boot process would go into a continious cycle of trying to boot. If you can still navigate in your machine attempt to backup any pictures,music,or documents to CD or DVD. It may be the last chance you get. If you use an external hardrive for backup DO NOT attempt to backup anything to it. If you're lucky the virus might not be on that drive. I never backup to my external drive until I have disconnect from the IP and run a full system scan. If you use a external drive for backup some of the software programs for conducting the process have a catalog file that tells your computer where everthing goes when you do a recovery or you may have created a recovery disk as part of the program. If you know where this file is burn it to it's own CD. Once you've gotten to this point you can try some of the methods mentioned in the article and the comments section. If a reformat is the only way out then load you installation disk. As it goes through the process of loading windows you'll have the option to format the hardrive. There are actually two format options with one being identified as a fast format. Do yourselve a favor and use the slow format. It takes a lot longer but I used the fast format option once and it didn't get rid of the virus. Your engaged in a operation you don't need to repeat immediately. After you reload the OS you can get your updates. The Windows firewall should offer enought protection to complete that task. If you have a full system backup it's time to load and run the program to recover your data and all will be right with the world. If you have a full backup you'll need to install the updates or the recovery program is going to have a problem. If you don't have a full backup its one program at a time starting with security. One more point on external hardrives for backup. If for some reason you can't use the program to restore the data, like maybe someone stole your catalog file. Don't panic! All your files are still there. Turn on the hardrive and go to my computer, Windows should reconize it. Your backed up files will most likely be a set. You can download the whole thing to your documents and use exployer to open the set and pick out the individual files (pictures,music,documents)and move them where they need to be. Twelve Gig,76000 files,five evenings,piece of cake! Hope this helps.

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Comment from Ralph Kuhn on 2008-11-07

2008-11-07T19:04:55Z

Leo, on some of the comments the last part of these comments are not readable. They are covered up. Am I doing something wrong?

Covered up by what? I'm sure you're not doing anything wrong, but this is the first I've heard of anything like this.

- Leo
08-Nov-2008

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Comment from Jan on 2008-11-05

2008-11-05T11:10:51Z

Just thought this might be worth trying. My friend's PC was infected by Malwarrior. It prevented her anti-virus programmes from working and prevented her from downloading any others. I suggested that she try downloading SuperAntiSpyware, which is available free from FileHippo.com. The programme downloaded successfully and destroyed the viruses. At another time, her brother's PC became infected with several viruses, only these viruses would not allow him to access the Internet for more than a few seconds before closing it down. He therefore could not download this anti-virus programme. I copied the programme onto a data disc-pen and he was able to run straight it from there. Again, it got rid of all the viruses. Hope this comment is useful.

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Comment from Robin on 2008-11-05

2008-11-05T08:53:17Z

I think your 5 steps would be much clearer if you changed it to 6 steps and included a step before the step to reinstall all your applications to first install all your protection ie antirus, firewall, anti maleware software and windows updates.

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Comment from Syd Appleton on 2008-11-04

2008-11-05T01:27:22Z

Following a devastating malware attack I was left with a machine which would no longer boot up in Windows XP. I had to reinstall to factory default settings XP SP1 using the manufacturers rescue disk, losing all data and programs in the process. Fortunately I had some data on a backup disk (more than a month out of date) but it was a long and painful process restoring all lost programs. I still can't identify the Trojan responsible as it effectively suicided in the crash. I have a 320Gb USB backup drive which I am certain is infected. How can I access/clean/recover data on this drive without reinfecting my PC again - not something I would risk lightly!

As long as you don't run any software that's on that drive, you're probably OK to plug it in and run a virus scan on it. The problem is auto-run - it may automatically run software as soon as you plug it in. You could turn it off system-wide before plugging in the drive.

An alternative would be to boot into a Linux Live CD (Ubuntu, Knoppix, others...) and use that to copy only the files you want off of the external drive.

- Leo
05-Nov-2008

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Comment from Dennis Jackson on 2008-11-04

2008-11-04T22:21:59Z

Leo - the two options that you mention in the article (either find an effective malware remover or reformat your hard drive and reinstall everything) are NOT your only choices! I've found that reverting your machine to an earlier state via a Restore Point is often an effective way to rid yourself of malware that the anti-malware package that you have installed does not detect (they ALL have their particular weaknesses). Another option, admittedly more exotic, is to set up and use a virtual machine as your primary means of defense. Virtual machine get infected? Blow it away (and the malware with it)! I suspect that this last option will become more popular as zero-day attacks become more frequent and virtualization software becomes easier for us mere mortals to use...

I have very little faith in restore points. I know that they can help in some cases, but remember: they don't restore data. If you want to go this route it's much better to have a regular backup instead.

The problem with VM's is in its complexity for the average user, and this concept of "just blow it away" - you'd be blowing away all the customizations made within that VM, and potentially any data you saved within the VM. It needs to be very well understood what's in and what's out of the VM for it to be used effectively.

- Leo
05-Nov-2008

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Comment from Jeff Bowman on 2008-11-04

2008-11-04T21:48:07Z

To go back to the original comment, I am not as confident as you, Leo. I used to have a BBC Micro (Acorn Computers) in the days before PCs or Macs existed. There was a program floating round school that caused the stepper motor of the 80 track 5 ¼” Floppy disk to try to access track 81. These drives were pretty simple affairs and would make a horrendous buzzing noise when this happened. We never broke a drive but it certainly did no good!
These days, computers are far more complex, could a virus disable the heat monitor and overclock a CPU to destruction or perhaps wrap a hard disk head around the spindle?

I certainly considered the old "bash a floppy drive" scenario, but in addition to becoming more complex, most of the logic for that kind of control has moved onto the devices themselves - i.e. you just don't have that kind of control in Windows-accessible software any more. It goes through a layer of device drivers or on-board firmware that notices you're trying to do the impossible (or the unsafe).

- Leo
05-Nov-2008

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Comment from Gwyn on 2008-11-04

2008-11-04T19:33:59Z

Re the five "starting over" steps mentioned in this article, if you "back up" then at the end "restore...from your backup", will you not be transferring the virus to your backup external hard disk (or whatever ) and then transferring it back on to your cleaned pc? Also, re "reformat your hard disk", is this the same thing as "rolling back to the factory settings", which is a description I have read somewhere I'm sure?(Layman's language please in any explanation. Thanks)

Remember, the restore step says "data only" - only your documents, pictures and such. These are all less likely to carry a virus. If anything I should have included a separate step to scan your backup for viruses before restoring anything.

"Reformat your hard disk" is not the same as "Restore to factory settings". A reformat erases everything on the disk, leaving it empty. Hence the additional steps to reinstall everything.

- Leo
05-Nov-2008

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Comment from Marc on 2008-11-04

2008-11-04T19:08:10Z

Believe it or not, the HP agent in my country refused to honor the warentee on a work Laptop drive, as they stated that a virus had physically damaged the drive, and so was not covered! We had to purchase a new drive. Unbelievable. As Leo and others state, a virus can NOT physically damage your drive. Thanks Leo.

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Comment from Roger on 2008-11-04

2008-11-04T18:41:07Z

I was hit with Antivirus XP 2008 last month (AVG didn't catch it) but, like Mary above, Malwarebytes cleaned it up. It's a good download with step-by-step instructions. Thanks to Leo for the article and link.

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Comment from AG Wright on 2008-11-04

2008-11-04T16:41:59Z

In order to remove Antivirus XP from a computer I first boot the computer into Safe Mode then run a program called Smitfraud fix from the link below.
http://siri.geekstogo.com/SmitfraudFix.php
Now reboot.
Next I scan with whatever updated anti virus the customer has. If they have none, the usual situation, I install either AVG Free or Clam Win, depending on the speed of the computer and the amount or RAM. Slower computers get Clam.
Next I install and run Spybot Search and Destroy.
If this doesn't finish the problems I run HijackThis. If one is not experienced with this program I'd suggest that a trip to one of the many forums where they interpret HijackThis logs.

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Comment from Grover on 2008-11-03

2008-11-03T10:43:32Z

I've used UBCD4Win to clean up malware. I've also been the computer repair guy and had to explain these same choices to a customer: I can clean your system, but it will take me at least 6 hours at $30/hr, or can reinstall at the same rate for 2 hours. Most choose option 2, but, fortunately for the bank balance some choose option 1...

I would guess that those who choose the more expensive option have data that hasn't been backed up that they can't afford to lose.

- Leo
03-Nov-2008

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Comment from Mary on 2008-11-02

2008-11-02T22:06:40Z

I had a similar problem a couple of months ago and Leo did an article.

http://ask-leo.com/how_can_an_infection_like_antivirus_xp_2008_happen.html

Maybe I was just lucky and caught the problem quickly enough, but the instructions at bleepingcomputer.com coupled with the free removal tool from Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware worked well.

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A comment on: Can a virus destroy my computer or hard drive?

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