new trick from a virus,

To be honest, if you're charging £30 an hour, I'm sure they'd rather you slaved their HDD off on your laptop via USB HDD caddy, backed up all their photos and documents, virus scanned + fixed those, then wiped the machine and started again - job done in a few hours rather than a whole day for a machine that is completely inundated with malware rubbish. Sadly scans can't be completed very quickly on older PCs that don't have decent hardware. Joe Public doesn't normally have anywhere near the amount of apps/games installed that an enthusiast would, either.

I'm edging towards the nuke it from orbit camp to be honest. I've spent enough time cleaning up people's PCs to be completely fed up with it now. 8 hours rebooting/scanning/wiping stuff from an ancient PC or a few hours reinstalling - no brainer to me.
 
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i will not waste my time with you as you are not worth it because you can reinstall an os you believe you are capable of fixing peoples computers :rolleyes:

you would certainly not get a job working for me as you do not have the required skills.

enjoy doing your unatended installs and using a program to back up all of someones documents with minimal effort and charging a small fortune for the pleasure.

Christ alive you do know how to wind people up don't you, you silly troll. You will not waste anyones time because you are a clueless idiot whos opinion is the only correct one and when it comes to people replying back you come back with some silly "im not playing so i'm going home" retort. God you can tell its half term can't you.

If anti virus software is incapable of deflecting actual viruses, what good is running one that may catch a few but can't find the rest? You moron.:rolleyes: Try living in the real world. Nobody would want to work for you anyway, because you would constantly be telling them they are doing it wrong when it doesn't suit your opinion, never mind industry best practice.

What do you do for a living when you aren't in school? Burger King? Car Wash?
 
Meh. I am a Network/Sys Admin and I do out of work stuff for people and charge £25, whatever the size of the job. Printer install? £25. OS reinstall? £25. OS cleanse (viruses/crap)? £25. In a day and age where highstreet and large retailers charge by the hour I find people are happy to pay a one off and get it done faster and better.

100% happy customer track record as well mainly due to everything being 1-to-1 and I show exactly what was done and how so they can solve it next time round but I still get return business because they like the way I approach the problem and assist in the solution with them.
 
I'm edging towards the nuke it from orbit camp to be honest. I've spent enough time cleaning up people's PCs to be completely fed up with it now. 8 hours rebooting/scanning/wiping stuff from an ancient PC or a few hours reinstalling - no brainer to me.


Tis the only way to be sure :)

Regarding a small fortune comment arcknor by how much would you guys say is reasonable to charge for virus removal and how much for install/backup?

Also comment regarding os doesnt slow down with age....really?

Do a fresh clean install on your own machine mate and see the difference.

edit : Khaaan! £25? fair enough for a homer but if you were doing it fulltime (ie legit and declaring it to taxman:)) for a living for wife and six kids would that be still the same?

And no i wouldnt work for you either...like being my own boss making my own decisions and doing very well for myself just now in a small town where word of mouth gets you lots of work.

You still never answered how many pcs you have repaired in your lifetime?

Come back and comment when you have done 500+ :)
 
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Tis the only way to be sure :)

At work, if we get the slightest sniff from our security analysis that a machine has misbehaved on the network, we nuke it to be sure. Some viruses have had a nasty habit of appearing to be resolved in the past, and then resurfacing later on because the antivirus wasn't 100% on target.

I agree btw, every time I nuke a local person's machine and get all their docs/emails etc restored, they are always 100% happy with how much quicker it is. ;) I make sure I set them up with openDNS, Adblock+, Spybot, Antivirus, Choice of browsers and show them how to stay safe. This usually entails educating male "clients" about which naughty sites are free and not malicious. :D
 
did one today which had fake av on and malwarebytes found 700 infections! once removed ie and all other browsers were blocking certain sites like google ect, i couldnt work it out so had to reinstall "HTTP Error 400 Bad request"

I tired resetting internet settings, netwrk settings, firwall exceptions ect ect, but nothing worked!
 
At work, if we get the slightest sniff from our security analysis that a machine has misbehaved on the network, we nuke it to be sure. Some viruses have had a nasty habit of appearing to be resolved in the past, and then resurfacing later on because the antivirus wasn't 100% on target.

I agree btw, every time I nuke a local person's machine and get all their docs/emails etc restored, they are always 100% happy with how much quicker it is. ;) I make sure I set them up with openDNS, Adblock+, Spybot, Antivirus, Choice of browsers and show them how to stay safe. This usually entails educating male "clients" about which naughty sites are free and not malicious. :D

Industry best practice is:

1. remove network cable.
2. Format unless forensics need to be preserved.

For the average Joe on the street, I offer the option of trying to remove any virii with the disclaimer that it may not be totally removed even with the running of several AV suites. A particularly nasty one I had a few years back hid itself in things like pdf files and gifs, so you thought you removed it, but it came back. Mind you, I've only been in the game 11 years, so what would I know.:p
 
Industry best practice is:

1. remove network cable.
2. Format unless forensics need to be preserved.

Aye that's the first thing we do at work without question to avoid "meerkat syndrome". :D

I'm paranoid, I use 2 external HDDs for backups and they are only ever plugged in (fortnightly, in turn) when I need to do aforementioned backup. ;) Your disclaimer is spot on... I scanned some old backup CDs the other week and a few virii were detected that had never been flagged up before. :(
 
i tell you what you show me a bank statement and ill show you one and we will see who should still be at school

What has the fact that I can buy a new BMW with cash or a large house deposit worth of cash in my bank account got to do with the fact you are an opinionated idiot who has had a number of people tell you that you are wrong in this thread?

Shouldn't you be in bed or has mummy let you stay up for a while longer? Don't tell me you sneaked downstairs to use daddys pc just because some real world men have been nasty?:eek:
 
While we are on the subject what do you guys charge for a reinstall, and im not talking about a f12 hp restore wizard ect, i mean a fresh copy of windows with backup and free av installed?

Or the common fake av removal, which can consist of safe mode or my favourite, removing HDD and scanning in a work bench machine.
 
Cheers guys...love it :)

How much money in the bank doesnt really matter but knowing what you are talking about on here does :)

Arkon mate dont care if you earn £200K+ just dont tell me how to do my job as i would never dream of telling you how to do yours....what do you do by the way?...please dont say your a purple shirter :)

Each to there own regarding pc repair but when you do it as a living its best not to cut corners.

The way you fix your own pc or a mates if very different to a customers as your reputation is at stake if you charge for a quicky and it all goes belly up a few months later...even if it wasnt your fault.

Reinstall and your good to go for 2 years normally

How much do you think is reasonable to charge for removal compared to reinstall....you keep ignoring me now :(
 
While we are on the subject what do you guys charge for a reinstall, and im not talking about a f12 hp restore wizard ect, i mean a fresh copy of windows with backup and free av installed?

Or the common fake av removal, which can consist of safe mode or my favourite, removing HDD and scanning in a work bench machine.

Fresh install only is about £30 depending on which area you are in. Some areas you can charge more. By fresh install, we are just talking O/S install, no docs etc, although I tend to find that with my slipstreamed install disks, I can usually get in their docs, settings, updates, basic av install (Avast is my preferred choice atm) unless they have a paid for av such as Symantec/Sophos etc. If they tell me they have Mcafee, I usually recommend leaving it off and installing one of the better pieces of software. Praying you don't get a virus is of more use than Mcafee tbh.
 
virtualbox is your friend.

You say that, but if I have to download anything thats not an update of something I already use, it gets downloaded to a virtual box running XP on my Linux machine where I can keep an eye on it and run myriad virus scanners on it.
 
What has the fact that I can buy a new BMW with cash or a large house deposit worth of cash in my bank account got to do with the fact you are an opinionated idiot who has had a number of people tell you that you are wrong in this thread?

Shouldn't you be in bed or has mummy let you stay up for a while longer? Don't tell me you sneaked downstairs to use daddys pc just because some real world men have been nasty?:eek:
LOL keep it up...

learn how to remove virus and come back okay you have shown you have no knowledge of virus removal and even refer to the hours it takes for a virus scan to complete which just about says it all.

you do not to how to detect asnd remove all you know is how to run an anti virus and how to reinstall.

your not worth my time.

Each to there own regarding pc repair but when you do it as a living its best not to cut corners.
cutting corners is a reinstall...

mejink is the type of cowboy who would go around all the security forums replying to the hijackthis logs telling them to reinstall because he is utterly clueless
 
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Pickup pc, remove hd scan with kaspersky backup all user data plus program files, check hd using hdregen for bad sectors, check ram with memtest, reinstall os plus all services packs and updates, all data replaced, install adobe,flash ,open office and 4 diff spyware progs plus ultimate defrag, defrag machine after running ccleaner for junk/registry then return pc to customers house and setup/connect and show new programs etc...£55 :)

All installs done legit of course unlike other locals that chuck in xp pro etc and leave updates disabled.

Pickup and drop off alone is over and hour easy but its all part of the service and getting to know the customer and them you.
 
Still havent answered my Qs arkor.....10K posts and still a **** :) (t W A T )

ARKNOR just had a skim through your last 200 posts and you seem to have a lot to say but very little (none?) of it is to do with computers :)

stick to cars mate :)
 
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