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Resolved Question

Reinstalling From Rescue Discs After Virus.

Nov 9, 2011 3:19PM PST

Gateway NV59-Win7
Hi forum.
A little back story...
The other day my computer was infected with "FakeSysDef" virus. "Microsoft Safety Scanner" detected it, and cleaned it(MS Security essentials and MS Malicious Program Removal Tool both failed though). I didn't realize that a browser hijack/redirector was left behind, so in the middle of the night another virus named "Privacy Protection" installed itself. Malwarebytes cleaned that one up. But the hijacker was still there. "Spybot" Hijack tool fixed that.

Now my computer is clean and useable, but it's a buggy mess. Alot of things don't work right anymore.
*My "all programs" list in control panel is blank(programs are still installed though).
*I can't get a desktop background picture to stay.
*Some installed programs aren't listed in the "programs&features" list, so I don't know how to delete them.
*Other programs like Bing won't delete because it says they are running(but they're not).
*Some of my picture and music folders are locked, but I can get into them through shortcuts from other parts of the computer.

When I bought the laptop the first thing I did was make rescue discs of the OS(2 DVDs) and a disc of the drivers. I can't figure out how to use them though. All my junk is backed up on an external. I just want to start from scratch with fresh install.
Does anybody out there have some advice? Thanks in advance....Kew

Discussion is locked

KEWROCK has chosen the best answer to their question. View answer
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Clarification Request
Oh yeah,
Nov 9, 2011 3:40PM PST

I forgot the most important thing. The first virus deleted all my restore points, and turned off system restore.

Best Answer

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Re: rescue discs
Nov 9, 2011 5:15PM PST

Put the first disc in the drive, then reboot. It should boot from that rescue disc. If not, reboot again and go into the BIOS-setup to check if the DVD-drive is the first boot device. If necessary change that and save that setup.

Kees

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Thanks
Nov 10, 2011 1:52AM PST

Thanks. All went well. I had to go into bios.

It's amazing how many nickel and dime changes get made to a computer over a couple of years. Last year my bluray drive stopped recognizing some rental movies. I thought maybe it was new forms of copygaurding that the free media players couldn't decode yet. I guess not everything plays again.