Hi Maniac,
My concern is files on my externalbackup disk being infected. Will they cause a problem when I put them back on my freshly reformatted PC?
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My university uses McAfee virusscan - is running such a scan enough to ensure the trojan is gone?
If is up-to-date as a database and program version, probably - yes, but I doubt it.
I am talking about the files from my PC on the external disk. You said "yes, but I doubt it" - does this mean you think there is a chance the trojan will be on the external disk and I will transfer it back to my PC?
I found the following comment in the link you gave me:
When Should I Format, How Should I Reinstall
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Re: * Be sure to back-up all data before re-formatting the computer's hard drive. This includes address books, documents, music, settings, saved games, and anything else not obsolete. While a good idea in theory, not so good in practice. Some of the newer root kits can infect and hide code in any type of file, including documents, pictures, etc. Restoring backups after a reformat and reinstall, unless made at a point in time prior to when the computer was infected, would almost certainly reintroduce at least part of the infection or a hidden back door. That was my experience and the experience of many others.
From this link, I found the following quote:
Today's Nastiest Viruses
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ZeroAccess is so clever that even if you reformat your hard drive and reinstall your system it cannot be deleted. If ZeroAccess has taken hold of your PC the best way to remove it is to do a low-level wipeout of your hard drive — this “zero filling” process writes on every sector of the drive — and then reinitialize the disk.
The USB vaccine is only going to protect me from the virus embedding itself into Autorun, right? How can I ensure that I get rid of it with the reformat?
Finally, my machine has a
Recovery Partition for use in reinstalling Windows and I have two partitions on my PC. Am I OK wiping just the C:\ drive and reinstalling windows, or is it necessary to format the entire hard disk and re-create the two partitions?
Thanks again for all you help