You should be ok to backup your pictures, videos, music and documents, although you need to bear in mind that if your documents are stored as .doc files, there is a risk that they too could be infected. If they are stored as .txt files, then this won`t be a problem.
Once you`ve completed that, disconnect from the internet. DO NOT reconnect to the net until windows has be reinstalled and you have installed your
firewall software.
You need to do the following.
1 Restart your computer and go to setup usually by pressing the F2 or delete key.
2 Once you get into setup look for the boot menu and make sure you set it to boot from cd first followed by your hard drive.
3 Put the Windows xp disk into your cd.
4 Now save your settings and exit setup.
5 While your computer is booting you will see a message that says "press any key to boot from cd" press any key.
6 When the welcome to setup screen appears press enter and then press F8 to accept the Microsoft license agreement.
7 You will be prompted to repair an installation press the escape key.
8 Now select the partition that you want to reformat and press the D key to delete it you will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the partition.
9 Now press C to create a brand new partition you will be asked what size you want the partition to be in mega bytes. If you just press enter then the partition will be the maximum size that you can have. This is perfectly ok if you don`t want to create multiple partitions.
10 You will now be asked to format the partition select the ntfs file sytem and do a full format.
11 Once the format is complete setup will continue.
Your computer will restart during the remaining setup again you will be asked to press any key to boot from cd DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING. and setup will continue. Once the setup is complete and you are back in Windows remove the Windows cd from your cd drive.
You will now need to install your
firewall software, once you`ve done that, you can reconnect to the net and install drivers/windows updates/software etc. Don`t install an antivirus programme, until you have all the drivers you need installed. This is because installing drivers with antivirus programmes enabled, can screw up the driver install.
Regards Howard
This thread is for the use of baehan only. Please don`t post your own virus/spyware problems in this thread. Instead, open a new thread in our security and the web forum.