Ok, I know this would be a frequently asked question but I just cant understand some of it ,so I need your help.
I would like to know the recommended method to install avast on a heavily infected computer. Last night, I tried to install avast on one of my friends laptop. I did, but the real time shields would’nt start up so i tried uninstalling it ,installing avast through safe mode but still nothing . The main problem is the notebook is heavily loaded with Trojans which would’nt let me install any programs and even if it installs ,some DLL error pops up . The InstallShield Wizard pops up for a sec or two then just disappears. I wonder how Avast got installed ,but without the real time shields. Can Someone Help me with this? Please.
I’d scan with at least one Rescue Disk and completely format the drive in a new installation.
You might go look for yourself some AV-rescue disks or you could use SARDU, but be prepared with “virus/PUP alerts” depending on your heuristic/PUP settings, some adware to opt-out/decline if you don’t want them and to temporarily disable AV-realtime protection during the creation of the USB-stick (last time I had to do that with Avast; don’t know about nowadays, though).
Make sure to include external drives in the scan just in case some malware has been backed up there, too.
If you’re finished, install Windows+needed drivers+updates+programs like Avast and then be sure to make an image backup, for example with Macrium Reflect or with Paragon Backup and Recovery.
You might also make a system image backup right after installing and applying Windows updates and drivers to have a completely clean system you can restore in case you screw up right at the installations of programs or if you want to have an image without any AV so that you can cleanly install and try any security software you want without having remnants.
After that, scan the backed up data with Malwarebytes and/or Avast at least once and only after that you should copy the data back.
If everything comes out clean again, make sure to include another image backup.
I would follow AdrianH advice. The Malware resident experts that lurk around the Avast forum do a excellent job, better than most retail aka geek squad at cleaning up malware and you probably won’t need to reformat or anything of the sort.
I only advice I would personally give is after your are done cleaning your system, to change the password on any sensitive accounts like banking, social, email b/c it is fairly common for malware to try to steal the passwords from these type of sites.
Totally Agree with this…the Avast Forum A/V experts are excellent.
Doing anything other than going thru the steps posted will slow, not speed up, the recovery. http://forum.avast.com/index.php?board=4.0
Be patient…this is not a quick fix process so go thru the steps.
Also, venturing out and trying fixes without proper guidance can get you in worse trouble…in other words using removal programs without knowing how they work and having specific direction to remove the targeted issues can truly brick your PC beyond recovery.
If those were only PUPs I would agree with you guys, but if I read something like this “notebook is heavily loaded with Trojans which would’nt let me install any programs and even if it installs ,some DLL error pops up .”, fixing is too time-consuming and compared to a clean install, you won’t have the guarantee to have every single Trojan deleted.
And I thought people in a board for an AV product would know the basics when you should rather reformat your whole drive with zeros including MBR after checking and backing up only the most important data from a Linux Rescue Disk, because that’s the most professional way. :o
It is precisely because of posts like this and the may be well intentioned but erroneous advice often given , that I said … take it to the experts in the correct forum and let them look at the RIGHT way to do things.
“well intentioned” ?? He’s right.
How much data does that drive have ? Scanning it all, step by step, trying to preserve and keeep the OS working and keeping it intact… restarting a scan, find something, restart a scan again… I have done IT work for 30 years. Spending 4-5-7 hours cleaning a virus off the computer is a complete waste of time. If the computer has a LOT of data on it, it could take 4 hours to do a single pass scan. You can do a full reinstall of the OS in 2 hours and fully patched with software reloaded in another 45 minutes. less than 3 hours fully done. In fact we have automated the entire process and can do a full install with all additional software in less than 2 hours now.
Guaranteed to be clean, piece of mind that you KNOW nothing is left behind.
Pull the drive, attach it to another computer. Copy all of the data off… OR get a new drive and install from scratch. While the OS is installing on the new drive, you can be scanning the data files on another machine. Use the old drive as an external storage, get a $20 usb case for it.
And do yourself a FAVOR. Partition the new drive to at least 3 partitions, separate your data from the OS and install Windows Steady State (XP) or Faronics Deep Freeze. Never worry about anti virus again.
If you need more detail let me know, we can send you a copy of our procedures. We have done this to over 600 computers. Ran an internet Cafe with 15,000 through the front door in 5 months and never has a single infection of virus, spyware, maleware, etc.
That’s even a better suggestion, because it’s a great opportunity to tune your computer with a SSD or at least a SSHD and unlike software promising to “speed up your computer” you really get a speed boost if you use something faster to boot from.
You can do a full reinstall of the OS in 2 hours and fully patched with software reloaded in another 45 minutes.
If you install from USB, especially from 3.0 (though with Windows 7 you need to make some [url=http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2280676]adjustments[/url]) with an USB 3.0 flash media, you could get the installation of Windows done in less than 10 minutes on a SSD, but even with USB 2.0 speed it's still faster than from DVD.
Partition the new drive to at least 3 partitions, separate your data from the OS[...]
It's easier to let Windows decide how to make the partitions and if you're making a backup of the whole drive - MBR/GPT initialization and boot information included, though to separate data, you could also either use an external drive or remove the optical drive and replace it with an SSD and separate Windows+programs on the one side and data on the other side.
Ran an internet Cafe with 15,000 through the front door in 5 months and never has a single infection of virus, spyware, maleware, etc.