Virus problem

[sebastianboomer]

Sorry if this is a repeat of an early thread? I have searched but couldn't find anything that matched my current problem.

 

A friend gave me his old university computer (acer aspire t-650) running windows xp media centre edition.

 

To begin with:

 

- When searching google, if I clicked on one of its suggestions it would redirect me to a completely different site. I tried running some free antivirus and malaware programs without much luck.

 

- I then went to reluctantly install my last copy of kaspersky but the computer would not pick up the DVD drive, not even in device manager.

 

After a restart:

 

- no programs would execute as normal, to make anything launch I have to manually browse and select the .exe from program files.

 

- no internet, so can not download any additional softwares to rectify the issue.

 

- no task manager (task manager has been disabled by the administrator)

 

 

With this in mind, I would normally cut my losses, format the drive and re-install windows. When I attempted this the computer would not boot from the CD drive. I removed the 160GB SATA drive and put in an old 40GB IDE I had and installed windows without an issue and the machine works okay on the old, smaller drive.

 

Then I thought I could recconect the infected drive, boot to the old 40GB and then format the infected drive from my computer. The only problem is, the infected drive is not picked up in My Computer? Also, now that I can boot from CD I thought I would try and re-install windows on the infected drive.

 

When I started the computer with Windows XP disk in the the drive and pressed F12 to select boot option, the 40GB working drive, 160GB infected drive and DVD/CD drive were there as options. I selected DVD/CD and began the windows instilation. When it came to selecting the hard drive to install to, only the 40GB one was present.

 

I'm confused to say the least but just want to try and rescue the SATA drive and if possible recover all my mates degree work!

 

Sorry for the massive thread

[RandyL]

There are a lot of ways of doing this but to keep it simple I would do this:

 

Connect the original drive to a working computer. Slave it if it's EIDE or just plug it in if it's SATA. Also you can get a caddy and put the drive in that and plug it into a USB port.

 

Now you should be able to copy the data to media or USB stick. Note that you may have to "take ownership of the files" after copying to the new computer.

 

Reconnect the original drive in the original computer. Go into the BIOS. See if the BIOS detects the CD/DVD drive. If so set the CD/DVD drive as first boot option. Save the change and exit the BIOS.

 

Reinstall Windows. Update Windows.

 

I'm sure others will offer other options so you may want to wait.