everybest

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Jan 20, 2007
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I got a virus a few months ago and backed up what I needed into a folder. This week my harddrive died, so i replaced it, set up partitions, installed a new copy of windows, and today, I opened up a file in my backup folder with a virut.ce in it. Not having much to lose, I reformatted the drive, and reinstalled windows, but the virus was still there. I ran anti-malware, avg, drweb, and fixmbr and reformatted, but the virus was still there before I opened a single file in XP. Do I need to delete all the partitions on that harddrive, then repartition and reformat?

Thanks
 
Solution
Any Virut infection is a nasty one.

It can travel across partitions, transfer from external media and travel through a network.

It infects .exe and .scr files. So if you have backed up any files with these extensions there is a possibility that they may be infected.

Virut targets Windows files, but is indescriminate, given the opportunity it will infect ANY .exe and .scr files.

While the malware can be cleaned or infected files can be disinfected if caught early enough, it is very difficult to ascertain if the malware is truly absent. Over time, the infection spreads and disinfection often causes Operating System corruption rendering it useless. Often it hides and can reinfect from an external source, i.e. backup files from external...

btk1w1

Distinguished
Oct 13, 2008
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18,660
Any Virut infection is a nasty one.

It can travel across partitions, transfer from external media and travel through a network.

It infects .exe and .scr files. So if you have backed up any files with these extensions there is a possibility that they may be infected.

Virut targets Windows files, but is indescriminate, given the opportunity it will infect ANY .exe and .scr files.

While the malware can be cleaned or infected files can be disinfected if caught early enough, it is very difficult to ascertain if the malware is truly absent. Over time, the infection spreads and disinfection often causes Operating System corruption rendering it useless. Often it hides and can reinfect from an external source, i.e. backup files from external media, but the files infected are .exe and .scr. So if the backed-up files are documents, photos or movies it will be fine.

The bottom line is that you can attempt to disinfect your system from this menace, but you might see a reappearance in time. There are a few online tools that claim to clean the Virut malware. If it were me I would delete all partitions on the internal drive(s), do a full format, repartition and reinstall the Operating System. With the new operating system I would disable autorun so that whenever I connected any external media I could run a full scan first, just to be sure it doesn't reside there.
 
Solution