i hate to say it but i was downloading a torrent for a .rar file and during the installation Avast picked up win32: Trojan-gen {other} present in the file (i quickly stopped the dl which had reached 96%).
Upon pressing delete Avast gave me an error that i could not delete the file. This also occurred when moving to chest. After closing the avast window and re-virus scanning the .rar file the window returned and i was able to delete the file
I have now deleted the .rar file (which i didn’t actually open or extract) from my system.
Have i stopped the virus from actually entering my computer? seeing as it was picked up and deleted and the file wasn’t actually opened or extracted?
I am currently running a thorough Avast scan but am not near the affected computer so i can say whether it has been picked up again
on another note, i have been thinking of doing a format of my computer anyway but if my computer is infected, what files types would be effected?
I have alot of audio files + photos etc which i would transfer to an external HD before doing a format would these be effected to the point that once transferred back would the virus re-infect through these files?
As this is apparently not a file infector, you are perfectly all right to save all your important data and put them back later after you have cleansed and re-installed. Mind that you have all the updates and patches for your OS software and check the same for the other third party software using Secunia PSI from here: http://secunia.com/PSISetup.exe. To make your computer invincible, read this: http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=45884.msg384712;topicseen#msg384712