Vista - How do I go about remounting Vista to cure an infected machine.

Given the shop costs and how ineffective they
are in cleaning up my machine, it seems buying the
disks for Vista and remounting over the OEM
distribution of Vista seems to be a cost effective
solution. Or am I off base? How do I mount the need drivers
for the hard disk? Will they come with
the OS. Understand I haven't mounted
an OS anytime during the Windows era!
I did it repeatedly on 286 era computers.

Help! Any books that would be dead on
to this topic?

Trig

trigonometry1972@xxxxxx | wrote:Hey Trig,

I've been cleaning Vista boxes and XP boxes for a while now. A couple
of tools you can use are ERD Commander and CCleaner. ERD Commander will
boot a temporary windows environment and you can then use one of the
restore points if that was an option. If your Vista machine still boots
and is fairly workable, you can use CCleaner to clean up some of the
garbage and clean out the registry. I have a Vista box that I use
CCleaner on periodically to keep things tuned. It works pretty well.

If I'm misunderstanding your problem, please let me know.

rob

trigonometry1972@xxxxxx | wrote:
1. It depends on the shop how effective and expensive they are.
2. It depends on what you've infected your computer with.
3. You don't "mount" an operating system or drivers. You install them.

Sometimes from a practical standpoint it is better to back up the client's
data and clean-install Windows, no matter how skilled the tech is at
removing malware.

That said, since you mention that you have an OEM machine you should first
read the manual that came with your computer or look on the OEM's website
to see how to return the machine to factory condition. Most newer machines
have a hidden partition that holds the image. Most newer machines also give
you the ability to make physical recovery disks. If you neglected to do
this and/or for some reason have damaged the partition holding the image,
contact the OEM's tech support to order recovery disks. These are usually
very inexpensive.

The OEM recovery disks will have the necessary drivers but you can always
get the latest drivers from the OEM's website.

Some links you may find helpful:

How to install Windows Vista - covers upgrade and clean install -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918884

Repair Vista - http://vistasupport.mvps.org/windows...ir_options.htm

Repair A Vista Installation Using The Upgrade Option Of The Vista DVD -
http://tinyurl.com/3b7yrj

Repair Windows Vista using Startup Repair -
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tuto...torial148.html

For people who only have a restore image - Windows Vista Recovery Disc
Download:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/window...disc-download/

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ