Member Avatar for VRViperII

Hi

Recently my computer got infected with some spyware that I couldn't quite remove. It installed the program PSGuard everytime I turned on my com. I managed to disable it but it still lurked in my registry and I couldn't delete it for some reason. So I decided to format my com.

After formatting my com, I got infected within a minute again. I didn't even open Internet Explorer. I set the computer to format and let my computer run while I went to do other stuff. I came back and I saw my C: with some of those "free virus scans" or "free spyware removal tools" installed in my folders.

My friends say that it may be because the spyware before I formatted infected my motherboard...is that even possible? Help would be appreciated, this is the first time for me where formatting doesn't solve the problem :confused:

note: I formatted correctly. I boot on xp cd, deleted my old partition, created a new one, formatted the partition and installed xp there.

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Member Avatar for D-Rider

That's a new one. I've never heard of that before. You may need to do a low-level format on the drive. I think Seagate and Fujitsu offer some freeware utilities that you can download. I'm not sure if they will work with all drives however. Try to get a bootable DOS diskette if possible and run fdisk and format from it. If you try to format with the XP CD again, make sure that you delete the partition and re-create it before formatting.

If all else fails, power down your PC, unplug it, and remove the DIMMS and battery from the motherboard for 30 minutes. Good Luck.

Member Avatar for VRViperII

thanks for the response

anyone got other tips? I'm not too good on fixing up hardware components so I'd like to avoid that for now, unless it's really hopeless.

btw: are the DIMMs the horizontal rectangular chip things that look like ram?

Member Avatar for VRViperII

thanks for the help

well... the problem SEEMS fixed now. I formatted again, but this time, I disconnected my internet for the whole time. Sure enough, no spyware appeared (probably because there was no internet connection to attack me?). Then I turned on the windows firewall (it was off by default) and installed my mcafee personal firewall. So far I can surf the net fine, I'll post any problems if they occur.

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