Should I reformat my laptop?

Question

I have trojan viruses (Generic and Vundo) in my laptop and probably other viruses I am unaware of. I'm not greatly attached to my laptop seeing as how I had it only for a year and only have 4-5 GB of files. I'm sick and tired of trying to "clean" it (if it is even possible) with multiple virus protection programs.

If I reformat my laptop and transfer my "clean" files/documents, will the trojans be permanently gone? Is reformatting the easiest way? And is Vista good? (I've grown attached to my XP)

Answer 1

xp is better than vista even tho vista is newer and yes you can delete those trojans you need the right software:

http://www.download.com/Malwarebytes-Ant...

download that and install it then restart your computer and go into safe mode and run a scan and then check all the viruses and select remove

Answer 2

Reformatting the hard drive will remove everything off of it including trojans and viruses.  Make sure you do a full reformat, not just the quick one.  And Vista is pretty good now, but I'd still stick with XP.

Answer 3

If you reformat your computer, and transfer your documents over you should be fine. Assuming all of your documents are free of viruses (which they probably are) then the garbage on your system should be gone. Now, there is always the chance that you may be infected again, but you're always going to run that risk.

If you haven't tried any Anti-virus software, then yes try that prior to reformatting your computer. It will be much less of a hassle, and it should do the trick.

As for the quality of Vista, that's a mater of opinion. The bottom line is though, if you like XP, you've got an XP disk, and you don't have a free copy of Vista lying around, then just stick with XP.

Answer 4

Some serious virus's will install itself on another partition of your hard drive and this will not be reformatted.

Vista is difficult to learn at first and is a resource hog. You will need 2GB of ram.

It would be better to do the following even if you are going to reformat

Update your Anti Virus and Anti Spyware

Turn off System restore

Start Computer in Safe Mode

Scan with Anti Virus and Anti Spyware

After scan is finished and you have deleted the Maleware

Restart computer set a new restore point and delete all previous points.

Rescan with Anti Virus and Anti Spyware.

If you do not have Anti Virus or Anti Spy Ware I recommend Avast and Spyware Terminator. Both are free.

Download, install and update from these links

http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Editi...

http://www.download.com/Spyware-Terminat...

Answer 5

Any PC, (laptop or desktop) if infected by a virus or malware or trojan, in effect destroys/alter files or create registry entries that may further harm your system.  It would be best to reformat your PC, install a good anti virus / malware software, scan all the files that you are going to transfer and ensure that the virus definitions for your anti virus are up to date.

With regards to your other question which OS to install, it is actually more of your preference which OS to use, although Vista is much more processor and memory intensive than XP.  If your PC is designed to be able to install Vista, then you can go ahead with it.