Cleaning up a dead man's computer..

[Elizara]

Me and my brother have slowly been trying to clean up the garbage on my dad's old computer. He was seriously fond of adware and spyware and Mom's a bit silly and won't let us reformat.

I think I got the worst off; would someone be willing to go though the HJT log and let me know what else we can nuke off here?

Thanks guys to whomever can help, it's been randomly freezing when we leave it on too long (more than a few days)

[DAKPluto]

Honestly...not seeing much really in there.

First thing I would do though is get rid of Nortan (Symantic.) It's become such a bloated piece of crap the last 10 years. Shame too, used to be the best.

I like Avast for my Antivirus needs, but AVG and Kaspersky are also great free alternatives that are better.

Other than that, I recommend going through with Ad-Aware and Spybot and cleaning up everything they find. But yes, I back up of important files and reformat would be the ideal solution.

[toonces]

back up, format, dont tell mom.

[viperlasson]

Back up everything and secretly reformat <.<

[Elizara]

I'll see if me and 'neko can use the spyware cleaners. (If 'Neko hasn't already)

As for reformatting; there's a reason that's not a option. Mom's really sentimental. You know how people can get about a dead guy's things. I mean, she refused to reset the password for the voice mail on Dad's old cell phone just because it had his voice on there! (she took that over, but had to get a new one, so that's moot now) Since dad wrote a few fiction stories and has his whole photo collection on there, she really doesn't want to reformat. We got Ccleaner as a first step and ran the regclean, had to get rid of Weatherbug..etc, etc. It was a mess!

Tho if we can't solve the rest of the crap, we may eventually reformat once we got enough space on the USB hdd to back up...we'll just have to make sure it's a evening when she's not here..(rare)

I'll see if we can switch virus scanners though. I like Avast! at the moment myself for free ones ^^

[Edit] Also, is there anything special you need to do to get rid of Norton? My brother was wondering about that.

[mootsfox]

Just save what you need and reformat. Your mother wouldn't know anyways.

[gt_killa]

Try Combofix.

Download it here: http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/sUBs/ComboFix.exe

and a guide on using it: A guide and tutorial on using ComboFix

[Pikarya]

Acronis > Make Bootable Disc > Backup Drive

Format > Install OS

[Baelorn]

If you haven't...Defrag, clean up the registry and check the memory.

[Funkworkz]

use tuneup utilities to clean up the registry, works wonders

[Elizara]

We'll try combofix and see if we can find another registry tuner, no telling what other crap Dad left on there..

Also, just so you know, she'd know if she caught us (reformatting takes hours)..the computer is in teh living room, in plain sight. So that makes reformatting without getting caught at it...difficult unless she's out of the house all day. (That only happens..once every two years or more? When bro's home that is?) Because of the hassle, we're leaving that as last resort; besides, we don't want to have to face her getting mad, she can be ugly when she gets mad.

[Pikarya]

(reformatting takes hours)

Install from USB drive 7-10min install. If that.

[Kenshiin]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but after all these years of having computers I've never backed up my files and restored. What's the best way to go about backing up my info, and what exactly do I back up so that I don't lose any files or programs? Or do you just save your documents and have to re download and install all the programs I had.

[Cephius]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but after all these years of having computers I've never backed up my files and restored. What's the best way to go about backing up my info, and what exactly do I back up so that I don't lose any files or programs? Or do you just save your documents and have to re download and install all the programs I had.

The best way to do this is to create a full disk image of your hard disk. This creates a byte-for-byte copy of your hard drive, so that you can restore it anytime and it'll be like nothing changed. No reformatting needed. The only downside is that images can be massive in size depending on how much data you have.

Try googling for Macrium Reflect Free Edition for a good backup imaging program. The two best paid apps are Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image.

[Pikarya]

The two best paid apps are Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image.

Use Acronis imo, 14.0 of Ghost no longer supports a Bootable CD restoration from a storage location.

[Kaylia]

HijackThis Logfileauswertung

This a nice site to scan hijackthis log. You still have to google the faulty process at time thought, but it give you a better overview than the log itself.

[Kaylia]

Sorry to hijack this thread, but after all these years of having computers I've never backed up my files and restored. What's the best way to go about backing up my info, and what exactly do I back up so that I don't lose any files or programs? Or do you just save your documents and have to re download and install all the programs I had.

People said it already, but you can make a full image of your disk. However, I sincerely don't recommend doing this because: 1) it's huge 2) you're backing up hundred of thing you don't need, programs you wouldnt reinstall.


My recommendation, back up important file on a DVD every months or so (picture, document, mp3), and if your computer ever crash, use this opportunity to get a fresh start.