Computer Help

[Mephistopheles]

I am cleaning out my computer, and I need it to only have the information and processes that it came with. Normally, a recovery disk could do that, but I do not have one. It needs to be done today, and I don't know how to clear everything out. I have some malware, and it won't let me delete it. I got rid of most of the games, and kid stuff. But now the hard part comes. No recovery disk, and system restore doesn't work.If anyone knows how to clear everything out, so it is just like brand new, I'd appreciate it.

[justsomeguy]

The easiest way is to reinstall Windows. If this is Windows XP, you can just put the CD in the drive and restart to start the installation process. Make sure you boot off the CD when it asks you, and choose to format your harddrive before it installs.

[Mephistopheles]

I wish that was possible, but I do not have the CD.

[justsomeguy]

If you can't reinstall, you aren't going to get it like new. The best you can do is do scans for malware with more than one scanner to remove everything, which will probably involve searching online for manual removal instructions for some of the more stubborn things. I've spent days trying to remove certain things.

[snowboard01]

Ad-aware is pretty smart at viruses. If you can't delete it quarintine it and get the instuctions to completly destroy it later. I think it might help you alot.

[justsomeguy]

Ad-aware and SpyBot S&D are both pretty good, but neither one of them alone will find everything, and there are plenty of things that neither of them will find. If you have hijackers or stubborn 'browser helper objects' that infect IE you will probably want to use something like HiJackThis to get rid of them. If you have been infected by coolwebsearch, there is a program called cwshredder to remove that. Take a look at http://www.merijn.org for those types of things.