I formatted completely, including the partitions, and tried to use my router to connect to the Internet. The router was running extremely slowly, so I called Linksys and they told me they would email me new firmware. They didn't, so I got impatient and set up my dial up software (stupid SBC Yahoo garbage, why do I need to dial up to connect my DSL?), and continued to install programs. I never downloaded a single thing off of the internet except for Windows Updates.

As it is today, 3 days later, viruses are running rampant all over my computer. My clipboard is disabled, and outlook express often stops working because apparently my 1 GB of ram "isn't enough memory". Norton constantly pops up with windows telling me that I have a virus and the file can't be deleted or repaired.

God damn it. I don't know what else to do.

 

Shoot the computer.

 

(hands lee the sledgehammer) have a burial by fury ^_^

 

I always thought you reformat, then reformat the reformatted drive so that nobody could bring back what was left. If anybody wanted to bring back the formated disk, it would come back to the 2nd reformat. I hope I didn't confuse you guys. That's what my Cisco teacher said.

 

Did you replace the Master Boot Record as I recommended?

Next question: What software have you installed? Are these all "official" released software or did you load some software down-loaded from the internet?

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Christople
[B]I always thought you reformat, then reformat the reformatted drive so that nobody could bring back what was left. If anybody wanted to bring back the formated disk, it would come back to the 2nd reformat.

 

There is a freeware application called "Delpart" that can reformat a drive completely. And I do mean COMPLETELY. It will even wipe out Linux boot sectors an such. I use it to recycle hard drives in prodution machines before I re-image them.

 

I don't have a floppy drive so I couldn't boot from a disk.

Here's what I just did:

Put in the Windows 2000 CD, restarted the computer, and booted from the CD.
erased all partition information and created a new partition and formatted it.
Installed windows, device drivers, and Norton.
Installed Norton and ran a scan, which came up clean for the entire drive, including the master boot record and boot record.
Tried to setup my linksys router, but got stuck when it asked me for IP & DNS information (my ISP does obtain an IP address automatically, which I configured, but the router setup didn't seem to recognize it)
Gave up on the router installation but installed the bundled internet security program
nstalled my dial up software and connected to the internet.
I'm downloading windows updates right now.

So, if Norton scanned my entire hard drive, including master boot record, etc., is there still a possibility that I have a virus?