[SOLVED] Malware destroyed my 7 Pro install (notebook)

Sorry Cat

It is also possible you may just be having some intermittent hardware failure. I had a MOBO once that would loose contact with my video card when it got hot.

May want to consider flashing the BIOS too.

Cat - nuking the laptop's drive is good, but a Guttman 35 pass wipe will be no better than the DOD 3 wipe pass. Just puts more stress on your hard drive is all. It's like washing your dinner plate in the sink, once it's clean its clean.

Your DVD-ROM drive cannot get infected, it's hardware and does not store anything.

Your RAM (you said RAM chip) cannot store anything once the system is turned off, it flushes itself when you power down.

Now a ROM chip possibly may store an infection, but Thrax stated that these types of infections are extremely rare these days due to the diversity of different motherboard BIOS in the marketplace.

It is possible for the ReadyBoost flash drive to store something on it, but if you scanned it and found nothing, then you should be good to go. You can always format it again too, which will get it back to a fresh device.

As CORE suggested, a BIOS firmware update / flash might do the trick. It worked for me a few weeks back when I had that complete crash because of whatever the heck it was... my latest theory is that an alien positronic emission scanned my computer and garnered information about me especially since I took the implant out a few months back!

I've done some researching on this notebook, it so happens that the Dell Latitude 610 (I had one before, and was refunded per warranty) has MOBO problems. Many of them, over time, develop fine cracks in the MOBO. Over time, this leads to BSOD's, one of which I just recovered from (in Vista). I only allowed the DBAN process take two rounds, as it was going to take a week for it to run 35 times.

Since recovery, the problems are getting worse, rather than better. I restored all partitions with Acronis, done a check disc on each OS, and still am having problems. The only one that I can narrow down is a heat issue. Acronis has a free drive tool that checks your drive(s) health. As I've already said, I just recovered from a BSOD in Vista, XP has crashed twice, Windows 7 is crashing, only Win 2K is running decent right now, which come a couple of weeks is going to be dropped my MS.

These were all fresh installs less than a week ago, except 2K, I recovered it with Macrium. I've done everything that I can, except just trash Windows and going with Mint on it, except the 10GB where 2K resides, I don't want to get rid of it. I suppose that I could install Mint, then run 7 Pro & XP in Virtualbox (Vista will never run in a VM on this notebook).

But one thing that I haven't done, but have the download for, is to flash the BIOS. I guess it's the latest version, that's what shows on Dell's site. I have it on a flash drive. However, I feel that no matter what I do from here, it's going to get worse. That MOBO issue is the key here, as I've had this same notebook before, and when the BSOD's started, within a month, it was over. It so happened. Shit, here we go again, another BSOD, and I caught a glimpse of it this time, it said something about "not less or equal" then shut down. I started it right back up. It's either going to run or die, and I don't care which it does, as long as it does one or the other.

Thanks to all for your advice, but I personally feel that the end is near, it was already giving some trouble, now BSOD's, folding at 100% CPU, too. I'll just keep an eye on it, if it shuts down, I'm firing it back up.

I believe my new notebook is around the corner.

Cat

I found my problem, at least to where my further infection was coming from. On the WD passport drive I was using, was an old backup from my mother-in-law's computer. At that time, she was running AVG, and there was some infection there already, because when I installed MSE, it had a field day of cleaning, and Malwarebytes finished the job.

That's how my backups got infected, I scanned the drive with MSE, it went to cleaning, particularly where her backup was. I wanted to format the whole nine yards, but didn't want to do all of those installs again, so I patiently waited for everything to clean. After about an hour or so, all was clean. The most notable infection was, Trojan Clicker: Win32/Yabector.B, whatever the hell that is. It was rated by MSE as Severe.

Anyway, now the notebook is going again, I've fully updated all four partitions and installed all of my programs on it. That takes so long, fully programming four partitions. Plus, the WD version of Acronis had to be updated, so there went another round of updating. I think I liked the older one better, in any case, I saved the install file if I don't like it. I have a full version for my desktop, it has more options. Acronis, free or paid, is the best backup there is. So simple to use, yet a powerful backup program. It even has a disc wipe you can use prior to installing your backup, I used it, but for only one round.

Well hopefully, it can hold up another month or two, I need to save some cash to go towards my next, of which Lenovo seems more and more attractive. Some of them has those AMD Fusion processors, I'll need to look them up. I really want a quad core, and refuse to settle for less. At first, I was wanting 4GB RAM, but 6GB would be better, the price will determine that. At any rate, I'd like to get 4GB, and have the open slots to add 2GB more, that would be fine. I want one that will finish a large folding job in a day, and I mean one that will give me some points for it.

Cat

From your mom-in-law, LOL! Maybe she doesn't like you as much as she lets on.
Now she regrets hookin' you up with the tech subscription, using MSE you downloaded has foiled her evil master plan.

Glad you got it working.

Glad your sorted Cat, nasty things can reside in backups and system restore points.

I've learned a lesson from this, whenever you use your drives on someone else's computer, to scan it. Normally, I set MSE to automatically scan removable devices, but I went back and made sure all was set to scan them.

And, I'll never depend on Safari's "safe search" feature to protect me again. In fact, Safari will never be installed on another computer of mine, period. Using that browser (or rather, trying it out) was what got me infected in the first place. So much for Google's "safe search" on a browser. With No Script that is on Firefox, this wouldn't have happened to begin with.

But that's life, you live, and you learn. As long as you've learned something, all hasn't been lost.

Cat

Safari's made by Apple, not Google...

I know that. But they give the impression that Safe Search makes you safer on the net, and by default, my searches were routed through Google. There may have been other options, but I went with the default one.

Honestly, I know very little about Safari, other than my 15 minute experience with them. As I understood it, Google is the preferred search provider, I had no problem with that, as long as the feature worked. Well, it didn't, and caused me one big PITA cleaning everything up. I do know this, even if I were to own a Mac (highly unlikely), I'd choose another browser for my needs.

If there were any misunderstandings over this, my bad. But I won't be be fooling with Safari again, period. I'd rather use IE6, at least I do know its weaknesses.

Cat