should I stop worrying about this?*info included*

[parachutestx]

Ok here is the whole story.

Around August 3rd or 4th I got the Win32.SDBOT after about 9 hours or so I thought I had it deleted. then about a week later I noticed the 2 programs I mentioned in a earlier post were there. after about a day of deleting them out of my startup I noticed something weird. My XP firewall even when I had it firewalled after about 2 or 3 times rebooting It wouldnt be on which I immediatly though ok I still have something on my comp.

I called Gateway up and asked if I just reinstall the XP Update Id be ok the guy said yeah well this is where the problem goes downhill I found out even reinstalling XP update I still had ME on there and as I started to reget the updates Avast warned me I had the very same virus.

I then tryed to format and reinstall ME but ME and XP are obviously 2 different particians so what I ended up having to 2 was the Write zeros function and and afterwards reinstalled ME then the XP updates I tryed to get the critical updates but whether it was just slow internet even though Im on a dsl line or something else I couldnt so I uninstalled XP update.

I took it down to Fry's electronics and asked them to reinstall XP upgrade as well as the full service pack 2 which they have I also asked them to scan and delete any viruses as well as patch them.

I get it back tommorow sometime and they guarantee there work for 30 days.

Im a worrier so my questions are
1.Once I did the writezeros function and everything did I delete the SDBOT?

2.Should I just stop worrying cause Ill be ok?

[Eddy]

Still had ME on it

You did not read what was on the screen when installing XP. If you did you would have been able to remove ME completely and woudl have end up with only XP (if that is what you wanted)

I took it down to Fry's electronics and asked them to reinstall XP

Looks more to me that why will do a clean install. Everyhting will be gone and you will only have XP (EVERYTHING means also any malware)

guarantee there work for 30 days

If you live nearby, come to my store next time. I give at least 6 months warrenty on the everything I do. And at least two years on hardware.

Anyway, you will be fine if you get the system back. But make sure there is a firewall on it and av software on it before connecting to the net.

[whocares]

2.Should I just stop worrying cause Ill be ok?

If your PC-shop does understand their stuff, then it should be ok..

I don't really understand your Write-zero stuff (overwriting the whole disk with zeros.. or somethign like s0-kill), but I assume you wiped the hard-disk.. nice, but if you don't follow below precautions while reinstalling WIN, that's useless


for the future..:>
When you set up Windows and go Online
- before it's fully patches or behind a properly configured firewall
- without having set decent, new, secure passwords
- without AV-protection

you risk being infected..!!
So it's POINTLESS to reinstall, if you don't do it properly.. !!!

(See VirusRemoval" below -> BACKDOOR-section)

if ever you need to reinstal from scratch:
- if possible with your ME or XP-Setup-disk:
split the harddrive into to partitions (C - System / D - DATA)
- format C:
- install ME minimal installation (no driver-Updates or programs)
- Install XP-Upgrade
- apply XP-SP2 from CD
- apply following Security updates from CD
- install AV
- best install firewall or activate XP's built-in Firewall (inbound protection only, though)

ONLY AFTER this are you allowed to go online for the first time..


 

P.S.:
if you make referals to your previous posts here, it'd be nice if you gave a direct link to them (just copy the URL from the adress-lin of the respective topic)