Netsky worm - little help please

[capriboy1978]

Aghhh - stress over for now.

A 'friend' has used my tosh laptop without asking and has aquired a multitude of infections (so he says) starting with netsky worm. He was using ebuddy or something as I don't allow msn on the machine as the people who use it aren't 'savvy' enough not to get problems.

Basically avg told him the machine was infected and to run a full system scan. He did and rebooted but everytime he tried to log in to windows it instantly logs out. Trying to be clever he then tried safe mode which let him in, ran the scan with auto repair and restarted. Then it logs out instantly no matter ehat mode it's started in.

All this is third hand info as he's done a bunk and I'm left to pick up the peices. It looks like he disabled all the AV etc for some reason and downloaded some pictures of his GF, prob semi naked as is the wont with most 15yr olds.

I can't log into windos to try and sort this as even my admin password instantly logs out. I've tried all the safe mode options as well as system restore (is was worth a try). I have an xp key for the machine, it's a tosh laptop, but no discs and as far as I can tell no restore partition. Someone else has also dumped about 4gb worth of pictures onto the machine the day before and deleted them off their mem stick and would like them back.....

Can anyone help? If it was a desktop and I had the win install disc I'd prob just connect to another machine, scan for issues and copy the photo's and any other stuff added since last back up and then format, put it back into the desktop and reinstall.

Can donate some beer tokens to anyone who can help me get this sorted.

ta


craig

 

[theheyes]

I'd start downloading a Linux live cd (Ubuntu, Linux Mint whatever) and use this to boot to try and salvage the 4GB of photos + whatever bits and pieces you want.

As for the machine itself it sounds completely trashed. If you can get hold of an OEM disc then you should be able to reinstall the OS with your existing key. I'd charge the friend to cover the cost of restoring it tbh.

 

[capriboy1978]

cheers, not dabbled with linux but it sounds a workable option. if it was an actual friend I doubt they'd have bunked off or even done this in the first place. Can't really disclose the actual circumstances. ...

Annoying more than anything - it's a cheap lappy in case it walks like the last one - not really my problem but feel I need to sort or it'll get binned and they'll be no access until another is donated.

thanks again.

 

[theheyes]

Yeah it's quite easy to do and once you know it can save you a lot of trouble.

Boot from the disc (it will take a couple of minutes as it's loading from a slow optical drive) and you eventually get to a Linux desktop. Double-click the equivalent of "My Computer" and you should see the computer's hard disk listed and be able to access it.

Your files will be C:/Users/<username>/... for example. Once you've found them, insert something like a USB hard drive or memory stick and start copying your files across.

The beauty of doing it this way is you're not risking your removable storage.

Give it a try - sounds like you have nothing to lose anyway.