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General discussion

laptop has trojan & adware

Jun 4, 2010 2:17AM PDT

I went to Geek Squad at Best Buy and they did a free scan of my laptop. Their scan found that I had 2 trojans: dnschanger and downloader - ruin. My laptop also had some adware on it called coolwebsearch (cws). I don't have the money for them to fix my computer, and instead of trying to find a virus program that can effectively remove the trojans and adware, I decided that it may just be easier to wipe my laptop. I have the orginal disc that came with my laptop to reinstall everything in this situation, but I had 2 questions.

1. I have never backed up my computer. There isn't really much on it that I need. The few things I do want to get off of it are just some word files and pictures. I don't think that those few documents would be infected with the trojans, but I don't want to remove them and put them back on my laptop after I wipe it if theres a chance there is. If those files could be infected, is there any safe way of removing them without transferring the virus?

2. I have never wiped my computer so I have no idea how. I haven't checked all the forums yet so I bet someone has already explained it somewhere. I have Windows Vista.

Thank you!

Discussion is locked

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Grif writes about this.
Jun 4, 2010 4:00AM PDT
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make and model
Jun 4, 2010 4:10AM PDT

Sorry didn't realize you needed a make or model. Like I said, I've never wiped a computer before. It's a Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527.

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That model used a recovery creator.
Jun 4, 2010 4:15AM PDT

Tthe Toshiba Satellite A135-S4527 software included a Recovery Disc Creator which means that for this model you pop open the CD/DVD drive and put in the first DVD you made with the recovery disc creator. Then you reboot.

IF (big if) the machine is still in its stock configuration this DVD boots and steps you through the recovery.

Hope this helps,
Bob