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General discussion

virus

Feb 10, 2010 11:19AM PST

I have two Dell latitudes that have gotten viruses. I had Avast on both of them but that did not seem to help. I cannot do a restore in safe mode or regular mode. Is there anything I can do after the fact to fix my computer? The geek squard says they can fix it for $200 even though they have not seen it. I can't believe there is not a fixc out there for less money or one I can do myself. Both computers boot up but I cannot use any search engines and after a few minutes it starts making a siren sound and locks up.

Discussion is locked

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Try the Cnet Spyware forum.
Feb 11, 2010 2:06AM PST

Such problems are discussed daily there. But here's something that I'm finding new owners to be unaware of. The new owners think that antivirus protection should stop all bad things. Sorry but it's still a PC and if we visit bad sites and click ok or install something bad then we did the machine in. Maybe someday there will be something that won't depend on us.
Bob

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Hi, Instrong:
Feb 11, 2010 9:17AM PST

You should be aware that a certain percentage of viruses (viri?) in the wild that NO A/V program is capable of detecting. So you'd better exercise a bit more care.

In the meantime, reinstalling your OS is the fastest path forward for both machines. Good luck!