How to backup files before I throw this laptop into garbage?

[RonTrance]

I am a no computer person. My laptop has virus or malware as google links redirects to different websites. Recently, my laptop has BSOD stop error 0x0000007E. I tried to do system restore, but it cannot restore. Then, BSOD miraculously vanished. I have not tried to restart or shut it down up to now.

I transferred some of my files from My Documents and Desktop to a DVD-RW. Are there any other ways to save the remaining important files? Please tell me how to backup files and stuff like that.

Thank you.

 

[LookinAround]

See [post=766270]How to recover your folders/files when Windows won’t boot[/post]

Notes:
1. These files may, themselves, be infected. So be very careful to fully scan them before you introduce them to a new machine
2. Do a FULL format of the hard drive and then reinstall (full reformat will remove any hidden viruses)
3) Remember if you have any files on removable media (e.g. USB flash drives) you must carefully scan/check them out too before reconnecting them to the system

 

[RonTrance]

Thx for the quick response. I have got a few questions.

-How to do a full format and reinstall OS?
-A full format will remove all unsaved files and data. Right?

These things about BSOD and malware are making me mad.
-How to get rid of BSOD?

For malware, I have scanned using Symantec Endpoint Protection, MalwareBytes, Ad-Aware, SuperAntiSpyware but all of them fail to delete these malwares. Do u have any suggestion? I also believe that these malware and spyware removals are the cause of BSOD because restarting after removal of recommended infections led me to irritating blue screen with stop order 0x0000007E.

Any help will be appreciate. Thanks

 

[MadLittleMods]

Reformat xp:

reccomended: Go to control Panel, press performance and maintence. Then go to system, go to the hardware tab, go to device manager and print out all of your devices!

To reformat xp you need to get your boot disk for your system.

1. Put it into your computer
2. Shut down your computer
3. Turn on and press f12 right at the beginning
4. Select the drive if more than one option.
5. Press enter, f1, and then any button to continue
6. Wait for all the stuff to load might take a while
NOTE: You should be one a blue screen
7. Press enter
8. Press f8 to accept
9. Press esc becasue you dont want to repair.
10. Then select your hard drive prob. going to be C:\ and press d
11. Press L to comfirm
12. in the space you just deleted, go over top of it and press C
13. Now press enter on it and format to NTFS
14. Install the operating system and go through all of it
15. Get drivers, etc
16. done

 

[pjamme]

Boot from Your CD

First follow the link in lookinaround's post and copy whatever you can to a USB Stick such as: My Documents, Favorites, outlook.pst and whateever else you need. Like lookinaround said they probably are infected also, so you will want to scan before restoring. I like the USB stick as you can scan and delete an infected file on it, you cannot on a DVD as it is read only.

Remove any removable storage before booting to your CD. Having a USB stick attached will mess up your drive order. Boot to you XP CD or whatever it is you didn't say. (may need to change boot order in BIOS and make CD first boot).

Find your old installation partion and select D for delete and then confirm with L as instructed for an XP install. Do a full format in NTFS and then install will continue.

If you do not have a CD but a Recovery volume like with an HP computer then you will need to use the appropriate Function key when booting up to restore from there. More system information would be helpful.
Looks like Madlittlemods is a faster typer.

 

[LookinAround]

Hi RonTrance

We've all thrown a number of different issues and "things to do" at ya. So let me see if i can't organize things a bit (at least per my own IMHO)

1. First order of business is copying all the files and folders from the problem disk onto a backup drive (e.g. by using my post)

2. Next I'd make sure everything on that backup disk seems about what you expect to find. And make sure it's virus free by testing on other computer
> Turn off autorun/autoplay on other computer
> Scan the heck out of everything on that backup drive
> Also, someone (maybe it was WinXPert) posted on how to create a bootable USB so you can put the A/V on bootable USB and scan the drive also (but would have to go searching for that one)

3. Once it comes to recovering your computer, seems there are several possibilities but first questions are
> What version of Windows and Service Pack level did u have installed?
> Do you have your Windows installation CDs?
> Did your computer come with a recovery partition on the hard drive?

Guess we can start from there and move on next