Author Topic: Can Macrium Reflect effectively remove all malware from my computer?  (Read 518 times)

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Offline margaretgeorge

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Since my computer got infected with possible malware again, I want to ask that can Macrium Reflect effectively remove all malwares from my computer if I start their inbuild Windows PE environment and use the system images of all the local partitions that I've saved on a separate hard disk to perform rollback/restore operations?

Offline DavidR

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If you have run Macrium Reflect prior to the infection, If yes there is a probability that it could.  However it would also depend on what that malware was and how it got on your system as repeating the same actions could result in reinfection.

Since you don't mention the possible malware name it is had to say.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.5.6116 (build 24.5.9153.762) UI 1.0.808/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

Offline margaretgeorge

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If you have run Macrium Reflect prior to the infection, If yes there is a probability that it could.  However it would also depend on what that malware was and how it got on your system as repeating the same actions could result in reinfection.

Since you don't mention the possible malware name it is had to say.


No idea what the possible malware exactly is. though I suspect that it's infected after accidentally clicked on a link that leads to French advertising website with Adsense affiliation. Even though no antivirus program has truly detected malware activity yet, I'm taking no chances and out of abundance of caution, I'd have to either go through ardous length of scanning with multiple AV softwares again, or take the easy way out through Macrium Reflect where I had made a pre-infection copy of the system image on another hard disk.

Offline DavidR

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What were the symptoms and or what detected it  ?
If you are confident that the backup is pre-infection date, then there is a good chance that you would be fine.

The real issue is how long ago was the last Macrium Reflect backup as you would lose anything else after that date and not just the malware. 
That is why I was hoping to get some information on what the malware was and how/what detected it.  So Macrium Reflect may not necessarily be the easy way out.

You don't say what other scanners you checked with ? 
So it may well be worth scanning your system with another on-demand (not on-access at that could conflict with Avast) scan MBAM Malware Bytes Anti Malware if you didn't try that.
Windows 10 Home 64bit/ Acer Aspire F15/ Intel Core i5 7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 memory, 256GB SSD, 1TB HDD/ avast! free 24.5.6116 (build 24.5.9153.762) UI 1.0.808/ Firefox, uBlock Origin, uMatrix/ MailWasher Pro/ Avast! Mobile Security

Offline mchain

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If you made the image before infection, then you should be ok. 

Restoring your image completely overwrites all data currently on your drive, and would overwrite your malware.

CAVEAT:  If you have files made after the image was made, you will lose these files unless you copy them to another drive, USB drive is preferable.  You can scan your file content before restoring your files onto the restored drive to ensure it is clean. 

Best option is to always back up files you don't want to lose between images when you create them.
More options are available to reduce chances of infections via your browsers.  Just research what you need.
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