On Fri, 2019-05-24 at 13:11 -0500, Javier Perez wrote:
Is there a reliable usb or dvd distribution with tools to clean up
viruses, root kits, whatever from a Hard drive?
I got a quite slow windows 10 laptop from a nephew for clean up (I
do not know what kind of viruses/malware might be lurking in there).
You can always try the brute force and ignorance method:
* Unplug its hard drive, put it into a USB enclosure, connect that to
your own system.
* Copy personal files across (pictures, documents, music, etc) to a
backup space. Ignore all system, program, configuration files.
Write down the names of particular programs that you'd want to
reinstall.
* Zero out the drive.
* Reinstall from fresh.
* Remove any unwanted shovelware included with that install (big name
manufactures often include their own awful software with the windows
installation).
* Do a Windows update.
* Install anti-malware programs.
* See if it's any good, then copy personal files back across.
NB: If you do not have Windows install media (which is the current
trend), you'll have to try and get some from their website, or consider
not zeroing the drive. Keep the Windows rescue partition, just zero
out the other partitions. Hope that the rescue partition is pristine.
I gave up on Windows almost 2 decades ago. I run a mile from fixing
friend's PCs years ago, too. I consider it on a par with being asked
to unblock their sewer pipes with bare hands.