Topic: OT: Looking for Viruses (the computer kind)

[Kaenyne]

Any some of you already know, my computer is ill. Someone who has heard the symptoms (shut down and cannot power back on after hard drive scan after an improper shutdown) thinks it's a virus.

He can save files and wants to know which ones.

My question is: can a hard drive be scanned identify in what specific file or files the virus is in, and delete those files, preserving the rest? I really, really, really would like to save my models if at all possible. And if a virus is on one of them, just delete that model.

[Reverend]

well, you just answered your own question? I have found a virus on a SFC model myself; I dug inside, and it was true... found a couple of viruses on Neverwinter NIghts materials also... more common there really... just an FYI

there are free antivirus software here http://www.majorgeeks.com/
I have a folder called New Material that everything gets downloaded into, whenever I am ready to check out what I got, I run the virus scanner in that folder, each time I get anything new... that way its 'isolated'..  

[DonKarnage]

try that: http://housecall.trendmicro.com/, there not the best but still should be able to find your virus and delete it, also try other antivuris the more the bother it is.

[Fallen_Warrior]

what you could do is burn your ships on to disc and put them into a new one and scan each disc and the ones that are infected leave alone while you keep all the ones that are safe do this with your collection and you should save at leat 95% of your stuff them boot up your sick pc with your emergency floppy disc and go about formatting your hard drive sine you have got a back up of all the safe stuff its just a matter of reintalling what you want one and then its up to you to get more anti virus software and a way better firewall

thats what i do and it works like a treat

[Thu11s]

Quote:
My question is: can a hard drive be scanned identify in what specific file or files the virus is in, and delete those files, preserving the rest? I really, really, really would like to save my models if at all possible. And if a virus is on one of them, just delete that model.  

Hi Kaenyne

Pretty much all AV software will try to remove a virus from the file rather than just trash it. Norton, McAfee etc all clean the virus and leave the original file intact (at least in theory). The only time a problem arises is when some agressive viruses overwrite your original file with random data, but they only normally do that to MS Office docs or .exe's but these are quite uncommon. Most of the big name AV's run free, online scans that'll do the job for you. I use AVG free antivirus. Its pretty good, fairly discrete and only uses about 7mb in memory (out of 1Gig, I dont notice it)

If your machine wont start up you may have a boot sector virus which can be a pain in the proverbs, but you can get around this by pluging the Hard Drive / Drives into another machine and scanning them from that one, just make sure that machines AV is well up to date! Alternatively, most AV's allow you to create emergency boot discs that you can start from to scan your machine.

Also, use something like Lavasoft's Adaware, this can check for Trojans and the like that try to take over your browsers and system as well as getting rid of dialers and other stuff that come down with some viruses.

Hope that helps

Thu11s

**Btw:  DON'T install more than one AV at a time, they all use the same system resources and will conflict like mad if they try to run at the same time!!**

[Kaenyne]

Thank you so much everybody!  You've lifted my saddened spirits some. I only hope that if this is a virus and not a mechanical problem, it canbe removed and I'll have my collection back. Oh, that would make me so happy! Better than Christmas morning!

BTW Reverend?which model did you find your virus in? I and others may have it too.