Neverside

virus and partions

so right now, i have a 250gb partitioned into about 30 gigs for windows/programs, and 100 or so for files, and the rest is unpartitioned. i think i may have gotten a virus/spyware or something, which from what i've read, is the reason why my antivirus/firewalls don't load. But apparently, virus can get into differen tpartitions, so i was just wondering, what you guys would do. I've formatted and reinstalled windows on the 30 gig partition, but what should i do about the 100+gigs that i really dont want to lose?

What I'd suggest is making a bootable CD with your Antivirus if it supports it (including the latest virus definitions if possible - e.g. go make this disc from another computer), allowing you to perform a scan on all disks and partitions before Windows boots up. If there's some viruses hiding out within your files on the partition or in the boot sector/etc, that should give you a better chance of finding them. Alternately, you could take your hard drive out and mounting it as a slave drive in another computer, and scanning it there (make sure the second computer has the right connections first of course - e.g. if your drive is SATA, make sure the other computer has SATA connectors, as older ones don't have them). This is of course a touch riskier if you really do in fact have a bad enough virus to be hiding out in your boot sector/etc.

Oh and of course... backup. Always. Get an external drive and backup your data at least once a week. Can get a 500gb external now for under $200, and smaller ones for much less, so there's no reason not to do it if you value your data. Get a backup program that has the ability to sync just the file's that have changed since the last backup (external drives usually come with backup programs, but you can also try Microsoft's free SyncToy).

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-- Dave
Neverside Admin

absolutecross.com

Last edited by AbsoluteCross, August 20th, 2007 11:45 PM (Edited 1 times)

oh nice, i didnt even know that was possible

if that doesnt work, while searching for bootable antivirus, i found the ultimate boot cd...anyone know if its good?

and just a side note on that lst suggestion, isnt there still a chance that while backing up files, i could back up a virus along with it?

thanks, lets hope it works.

Yes, there is a chance that you may be backing up the virus with the backup files, but still do the backup. Like Dave said, go with an external hard drive; if you don't have one, now is the time to get one because every savvy computer user will wish he had an external hard drive more then once.

Can you go into a little more detail about your problem with your antivirus and firewall? What antivirus and firewall software are you using?

Also, what the heck is the remaining 120GB of hard drive space doing unpartitioned? Seriously, backup everything and format the entire drive. Use up that remaining space by either making your volume partition bigger, or consider a dual boot setup like I have so you can have Linux installed alongside Windows.