Hi I have just scanned my computer and found out that a lot of my files are infected. After a great deal of sweating going dizzy with panic I finally the followed the recommended action and sent the files to the virus chest What I would like to know is can these files be cleaned or are they infected forever? If they can be cleaned how do I go about doing it? My knowledge about viruses and Worms is non existent. Thank You for taking time to read this. By the way I am using the Home edition package
Hello Sheilashappy,
To be really sure your computer is clean, you should do a boot time scan.
(In Win 98 this is not possible- boot into safe mode before scanning- hit F8 while booting.)
Right click the avast! globe and select Start avast! Antivirus.
avast! will do a memory scan: if it finds malware in memory, it will prompt you to do a boot time scan: accept this and reboot.
If avast! doesn’t find anything in memory, schedule a boot time scan. (Click the button at the top left of the avast! silver console and select Schedule boot time scan from the drop-down menu.)
Viruses sometimes attach themselves to your files, and the file can be ‘cleaned’ by removing the virus. Worms and Trojans are 100% nasty, and have to be deleted.
You’re best off leaving the files in the chest. If you experience any error messages, make a note of them and tell us what happened.
If you haven’t done so already, it would also be a good idea to download and run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search & Destroy to look for any spyware on your system.
Trojans generally can’t be repaired (either by the VRDB or avast virus cleaner), because the entire content of the file is malware, so it is either move to chest or delete, move to the chest being the best option (first do no harm). When a file is in the chest it can’t do any harm and you can investigate the infected warning.
If the virus can’t be cleaned (only true viruses can be cleaned and then only if the file is one that is protected by the VRDB process, e.g. those that actually change a system file, etc.) then generally avast won’t offer that as the recommended option.
Leave them in the chest for a week or two to ensure there is no harmful effect to your system, then it should be safe to delete them in the chest.
Try the, schedule boot-time scan in avast’s menu (requires NT/2000/XP OS), or try the ‘Schedule Boot-Time Scan’ using RejZoR’s AEC avast! External Control Tool
When you report some thing like this it is helpful to know about your system and a little more about the infection such as.
- What OS are you using? is it up to date?
- What avast! version and VPS file (virus database) number, e.g. 0436-4 (see about avast!)
- What was the virus name, what was the filename, where was it found
example (C:\windows\system32\infected-filename.xxx)? - What actions have you taken to try and resolve the problem?