<h1>How to find and remove a virus</h1>

This post is on how to find and remove a virus, which is fairly similar to my post on how to remove a virus from a laptop.

There are many anti virus programs out there that you can use to find and remove a virus, but there are a good lot of them that either take up too many system resources or don't remove enough viruses (the plural of virus is viri, but for search engines, I want them to see and use the root term virus.) There are plenty of anti virus programs out there than you can use, and I will delve into those in a later post.

Like I stated in the post previous to this, you will likely want to start by doing the easiest route (unless you already scanned your computer for viruses (viri).  You'll try and set the computer back to a previous restore point in hopes that  the virus didn't exist during that time.

So, the restore point didn't work? Well, then you decided to scan your machine again right? Did you reset your computer like the program said you would have to, then low and behold the virus came back? Yeah, thats not uncommon anymore. Any good virus programmer knows how to use windows restore points to "resurrect" the virus after it's been removed. Anyywas, I'm here to talk about how to find and remove a virus so lets move on.

So, you'll need to remove all the previous restore points. If you have windows xp you go to the bottom left of your computer and click start, you then right click "My Computer". In the next window that opens up you'll see a tab on the top left that says "System Restore" Click that and you'll find a checkbox on the next page that says something about turning off system restore points. Check the and hit ok. This can take anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes depending on the speed of your computer.

For Vista and Windows 7 users, it will be very similar. Instead of "Start" it's a little windows symbol which symbolizes "Start", instead of "My Computer" it's simply, "Computer". On the next screen, you follow to the System Restore tab and turn off restore points as well.

After this is done you'll want to run your antivirus program again, full scan, and once you reset your machine the virus, malware, trojan horse, adware, or spyware should be fully removed. If this is not the case, you'll either want to try a new one, or hookup your infected hard drive to a clean computer. How? Let me explain.

Go online and google "Universal USB hard drive adapter", they generally cost around $40. Cool, so you get that, and you remove the infected hard drive (laptop or desktop) and hook it up to a clean computer (laptop or desktop) using the universtal usb hard drive adapter. Simply run the anti virus program that is on the clean computer and make it scan the infected hard drive and it should remove it without problems. If for any reason this doesn't work, your next best options are to get a windows OEM disk (disclaimer: acquiring one of these through an online source that is not Microsoft can lead to lawsuits with penalties including but not limited to monetary fines and/or prison time. Consult a lawyer before you decide to find an ISO or other burnable image file and download it. I do not suggest this, but many of you already likely know how, so I put it up as an option ) or use the recovery partition or recovery disks for your machine.

Using the recovery disks or partition will wipe out your entire computer, including all of your personal files. You will want to save these to an external hard drive or something similar before doing a full system restore. With an OEM copy of your windows, you'll need to reinstall ALL drivers after you reformat (delete everything) your machine. This will of course wipe out your personal files and programs as well. You cannot save programs, so be sure you have an install disk or file available.

Essentially, this is how to find and remove a virus. Best of luck and good virus hunting!

TechSavvyT
Answering all your obscure virus, malware, trojan horse, adware, spyware, rootkit, boot sector virus and worm needs.