Re: to reformat or to try manual removal...

From: David H. Lipman (DLipman~nospam~_at_Verizon.Net)
Date: 09/22/05 

Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:44:48 -0400

From: "kcstark" <kcstark@discussions.microsoft.com>

| that is my question. When confronted with adware (or malware/viruses
| whatever) that cannot be removed by Norton, Spy Sweeper whoever, do I keep
| following the rabbit trail at the third-party software website to try and
| manually remove each malware, in the hope that it will actually get fixed,
| or should I cut my losses right up front and just reformat? Is there some
| guidelines you can give? I'm more and more often being asked to help friends
| that get hit, and I can't tell you how much time I feel I've wasted by
| manually removing stuff, that then show up again a day later. I'm currently
| going with the "if I scan and find just ADWARE/SPYWARE that say, Norton can't
| fix, then I'm just going to not worry about it, and if I find VIRUSES that
| Norton can't fix I'm thinking I'm going to go straight for the reformat".
| What do you recommend? The tech support guy at Norton said, just let them
| walk me thru it (for $70), and that it won't take very long and would be much
| faster than a reformat...that after waiting 78 min's just to talk with him!
| Hmmm...
|
| Any advice would be much appreciated!
|
| Thanks!
| --
| kc stark

It depends upon the number of infectors and the severity of the infectors. If one practices
Safe Hex then NO infectors should get on the PC. If one doesn't practice Safe Hex then all
the software in the world won't help.

That being said...

If the number of viruses are too high than a format is recommended. This is rare and
attempts at removal should be done. At some point there a cost benefit analysis needs to be
performed on the removal process and that will guide you to the format decision. It should
be only done if a backup is made so important data can be restore. Of course after the PC
has the OS updated, secured and anti virus software installed so that data restored is
scanned for viruses.

The following is a good tool for removing viruses, Trojans and some other malware...

Download MULTI_AV.EXE from the URL --
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

It is a self-extracting ZIP file that contains the Kixtart Script Interpreter {
http://kixtart.org Kixtart is CareWare } three batch files, five Kixtart scripts, one Link
(.LNK) file, a PDF instruction file and two utilities; UNZIP.EXE and WGET.EXE. It will
simplify the process of using; Sophos, Trend and McAfee Anti Virus Command Line Scanners to
remove viruses, Trojans and various other malware.

C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT -- { or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS}
This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. This
way all the components can be downloaded from each AV vendor’s web site.
The choices are; Sophos, Trend, McAfee, Exit the menu and Reboot the PC.

You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can
download the files and perform a scan in Normal Mode. Once you have downloaded the files
needed for each scanner you want to use, you should reboot the PC into Safe Mode [F8 key
during boot] and re-run the menu again and choose which scanner you want to run in Safe
Mode. It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode.

When the menu is displayed hitting 'H' or 'h' will bring up a more comprehensive PDF help
file.

To use this utility, perform the following...
Execute; Multi_AV.exe { Note: You must use the default folder C:\AV-CLS }
Choose; Unzip
Choose; Close

Execute; C:\AV-CLS\StartMenu.BAT
{ or Double-click on 'Start Menu' in C:\AV-CLS }

NOTE: You may have to disable your software FireWall or allow WGET.EXE to go through your
FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files.

* * * Please report back your results * * * 

-- 
Dave
http://www.claymania.com/removal-trojan-adware.html
http://www.ik-cs.com/got-a-virus.htm

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Winsoftware popups / Virtumundo new version?
    ... The WinFixerFix is much more up-to-date for this family of malware and so is Atribune's ... Download Adware-Virtumundo Removal Tool -- ... On Win9x/ME platforms the report will not be shown in your bowser ... It would be best to scan in both Safe Mode and in Normal Mode and save a copy of the HTML ...
    (microsoft.public.security.virus)
  • Re: Viruses detected and not cleaned by Microsoft Live Security progra
    ... I have Norton anti-virus and keep the definitions updated and scan ... FireWall to allow it to download the needed AV vendor related files. ... This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. ... It is suggested to run the scanners in both Safe Mode and Normal Mode. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin)
  • Re: Codbot.X
    ... malware applications isn't the software to use. ... The following multi-vendor AV scanner utility includes; ... This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. ... You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: trojan horse virus
    ... | Iraq and did not have current Norton or Ad-Aware on her computer for months. ... It should or you can try my multi Command Line Scanner front end... ... This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. ... You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsupdate)
  • Re: hacktool.rootkit
    ... Norton Antivirus reported the following: ... | online virus scanners and Norton antivirus numerous times and all seemed to ... This will bring up the initial menu of choices and should be executed in Normal Mode. ... You can choose to go to each menu item and just download the needed files or you can ...
    (microsoft.public.security.virus)