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Formatting soon...ASAP reply please!

jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
Hey everyone! The troubles of my pc have forced me to the only option of formatting my hard drive clean. I've made over 12 backup cds and the only thing I need before I finish the job is your opinions on what I should download, burn to a cd, and install on my "housecleaned" pc. When this pc was new I was immediately introduced to many worms and viruses when I first connected. I want to ask for links to things that can keep these troubles from happening again once I put everything back on my pc. I DO NOT want to have to see the countdown error on my pc again. Please, just give me every I need. I already have the fixblast file, but what else do I need? Thanks again. (sorry for the long post)
 
vampireuk

vampireuk

Mr. Super Clever
You do not need to format, simply run windows update and download the security files and the problem will go away
 
Clements

Clements

Active member
Moderator
You NEED a DECENT virus scanner. It's compulsory these days with these viruses. Check your motherboard installation disk and you might find one on there that provides adequate protection. You need a firewall, XPs in-built is not good enough. You should get Ad-aware as well. Get Mozilla Firefox and leave IE redundant - it's a piece of crap. I switched over today (!) and it has been the best decision I've made in ages, and you
cannot be exploited by loopholes that are targeted directly at IE which is integrated into the OS (so you're screwed if you get hacked).

I know I'll probably get flamed for this but I recommend Norton's Internet Security. It has a Virus Scanner and Firewall in-built and I haven't has a Virus/Worm/Trojan since I installed it. There are other good virus scanners out there too, you'll probably hear of a few more in this thread.

After you format, install the Virus scanner BEFORE you go on the internet for the first time. When you do connect, update the virus definitions straight away. Then download all the critical updates from Windows Update. No more Blaster or any other crap.

Make sure your CDs are not infected, or the format will be a total waste of time. Bare in mind that only certain files can actually be infected (viruses tend to attach themselves to .exe files, which, when you click them put the virus into your RAM and spreads to other .exe type files. .pif are also notorious.

Scan everything you download, or get your virus scanner to do it automatically, that'll be much safer. I had to learn all this crap the hard way when my computer become infected, now I'm forever sterile.
 
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rcgamer

rcgamer

the old guy
actually clements i have used nortons before , they are very good products. i still use the antivirus but the firewall (wich is very good for people who dont want to do any configuring)i found lacking in advanced features like importing ip to block. I use outpost firewall pro. anyway if you (jessman) want a free alternative then try avg antivirus and sygate personal firewall. they are both free. and, from the accounts i have heard about , they are very good. also get adaware or spybots or both. for me spybots s&d is the best but many people use both as one might miss something the other picks up. one good thing about norton firewall is that it comes with adblocking . but if you use firefox as a web browser it is already built into that as well. good luck.

here is a link to avg antivirus free edition http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php

spybots s&d http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php

adaware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

sygate personal firewall http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

firefox web browser http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
 
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OP
jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
yo vamp, i DO need to format. Much more has happend than you might know. Clements, thank you. You've always been very reliable. But, I don't know where to get half of this stuff. Also, I keep forgetting how to do a Windows update and stuff. I'll try to get my hands on that Norton program myself, but the rest I need links for. Please, I want to format it within 20 minutes. Thanks.

P.S. How the heck do I compress zip files? I don't have a DVD-Burner so this is the only easy option. I've seen zip files that are compressed from 1gb to 100mb! Please, how do I do this? Thank you again.


EDIT:Hey, is Avant Browser any good? I've always prefered it over other browsers. Also, I'm sorry for demanding so much and sounding like an ass, but can someone just give me the program names in a list? I'm hearing to many things scattered around and I just wanna hurry up and get this formatting done......WHEW! Sorry people.
 
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PsyMan

PsyMan

Just Another Wacko ;)
All right, after formating install the WindowsXP service pack 1 and the blasterworm hotfix, install a firewall and an antivirus. Update the firewall, then the antivirus and then use windows update and install all the hotfixes.
Do not install anything else before doing this and make sure the above files do not have virus(es).
 
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Clements

Clements

Active member
Moderator
Right, the best link I can give you is www.betanews.com

Use it's little search and it'll get the very latest version of a program you want, it's a really great site. You can find Ad-aware, Spybot, Firefox and so on all from that site, as well as trial versions of Norton's and other virus scanners.

Compress using WinRAR. It's fast and very reliable and compresses much more than zip. It also has the option to mass compress and span RARs over many CDs using the volumes option and selecting 700MB.
 
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OP
jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
yo, thanks guys! Last thing...if I can't seem to get all those programs would I be safe for a little bit with AntiVir, Norton's Antivirus, and Zone Alarm Pro?
 
PsyMan

PsyMan

Just Another Wacko ;)
As long as you update them there should be no problems (in theory). But SP1 and the hotfixes are essential.
 
rcgamer

rcgamer

the old guy
one thing, you only want to have one firewall and one antivirus installed at one time. otherwise it can and will cause problems.
 
flow``

flow``

flow``
for now i'd suggest just installing a fresh copy of xp/sp1a or 2k/sp4. winxp xp2 is due out around july (or so they say now) which will bring a major overhaul of window's security.

anywho, install your os of choice and download/burn the network install of the corresponding service pack and a firewall

then disconnect your net, install the os, service pack, and firewall. and then plug in your internet connection and you should be a little safer :)
 
sheik124

sheik124

Emutalk Member
i hope no fanatics flame me for this either, but McAfee Virus Scan 7 and onwards are great. i have 7 at the moment and have no reason to download or buy 8 as it does just fine as long as you update the definition files. and forget about antivir, you'll be fine with norton's antivirus by itself, zone alarm is a great product too
 
OP
jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
Hey everyone! My computer is now formatted and is working great! I would really like some help though. I keep getting a weird start-up error. Can anyon make anything out of it? I'm NOT formatting again! Please, tell me how to stop this annoying thingamajigger!
 
OP
jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
NO! rcgamer, my that's not from my printer, lmao. My printer's a Lexmark. I guess my entire pc is just messed up, ha ha ha. It has NOTHING to do with my printer. Oh well, I guess I'm always gonna get SOME errors.
 
OP
jessman1988

jessman1988

Banned
It's a Compaq. HEE HEE HEE! I FIXED IT! I was something that I just had to disable in msconfig. Hey guys, what's the likelihood of my Compaq Presario 2400 having an AGP slot? It doesn't mention anything in it's manual or on the box and the people at Wal-Mart are clueless. It's a great machine now, but even after I installed my GF2 MX400 PCI card, I couldn't tell. I saw a brown port, but is that REALLY it? Thanks. Besides that, my PC is 100% efficient! Thank you everyone for everything! (especially rcgamer and Clements.)

P.S.Firefox is great!
 
sheik124

sheik124

Emutalk Member
not always rcgamer, most newer agp ports have more notches in them, or "keys"
for example, my old KM133 mobo in my HP Pavilion was only 2x, but my GeForce FX 5700 worked fine in it, because it "looks" identical to my AGP 8X slot in this new A7N8X-E i got now. the different keys in the slot determine which cards will work in there. some agp slots are just one long brown slot, with none of the little notches in them, like in the mobo below. i don't know much about intercompatibility, but what i do know is if the slot can fit the card the way its made (like the notches line up with gaps in the cards connectors) then it should work
13-185-017-02.JPG


EDIT: now i remember what it was that concerned compatibilty, AGP Revision. this is very important in determining if your card will work, now i don't know where my cpu-z screenshot from my old pc is located in this message cus its an attachment, but this is what you need to do. download CPU-Z from CPUID.com, and click the mainboard tab, ignore everything but the AGP section, and tell us what that says on your pc, heck the whole lot of that section would be useful. the reason it worked on my old pc is because it had AGP Revision 2.0, most of todays cards (AGP Revision 3.0/8X) will work in an AGP Revision 2.0 slot, regardless of the speed, but not in an AGP Revision 1.0 slot
 
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