Viruses...do I need to reformat, etc?

[Tullphan]

Working on a machine for a friend...it's got viruses out the nying nyang. It's an HP...Celery 1.1 w/192 mb ram. He doesn't have the original restore disk & since it don't run too good w/XP Home, I don't think XP Pro will be better. I was thinking about installing 2000 on there. With all those viruses, is reformatting & reinstalling the OS my best bet?

 

[clicknext]

You could always try anti-virus, but if that doesn't work, reformat would be my next solution. Just remember that installing YOUR windows2000 on his computer is illegal. Unless you give him your license.

 

[Lovehandles]

Housecall has a anti-virus scanner on their website and it might even remove them for you.

Go here:
http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

You should be able to run Win2000 on that HP no problem. Just 2 be on the safe side i would make sure it meets all the hardware requirements for W2K on MS's website:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/hcl/search.mspx

Reformatting the HDD will remove certain viruses but it really depends on the virus. Especially if you have a virus that has infected your MBR sector, no amount of reformatting will help you there. Your best best bet is to do your best to first remove all the viruses you can find, then reload your OS.

 

[Hossenfeffer]

That computer should have no trouble running XP (Home or Pro)

As for reformat or no, give an anti-virus program a shot. Do the housecall thing to fix/identify.

What all viruses does it have (if you know)?

 

[crisp82]

If you know the viruses that it has, go to Sarc.com and get the removal tools. A Celery 1.1 (lamo!!!) should run xp with no problems what-so-ever. I know that those pre-built system can have bloated versions of XP, with pretty ie themes and stuff like that, but a little tweaking with Tweak XP should solve the slowness problem.

 

[waitman]

Originally posted by: crisp82
If you know the viruses that it has, go to Sarc.com and get the removal tools. A Celery 1.1 (lamo!!!) should run xp with no problems what-so-ever. I know that those pre-built system can have bloated versions of XP, with pretty ie themes and stuff like that, but a little tweaking with Tweak XP should solve the slowness problem.

What he said^ I run xp pro on an hp 500 celeron, it has worked great for over a year with no problems.

 

[Lovehandles]

Originally posted by: Hossenfeffer
That computer should have no trouble running XP (Home or Pro)

As for reformat or no, give an anti-virus program a shot. Do the housecall thing to fix/identify.

What all viruses does it have (if you know)?

Do I hear an ECHo????

 

[Mavrick007]

If he wants to run XP easier, tell him to get some more ram cause the 1.1 Celery should not have any probs running XP Pro.

Unless he has really important information on the HP, reformating and reinstalling probably wouldn't be a bad idea anyway.
You can probably even get HP to send a restore disk for a nominal fee, such as shipping.

 

[Psychosylph]

Just nuke it and rebuild unless he has anything important...

WinXP should run fine on that machine, but I won't run XP w/ less than 512MB RAM ever again - it's too slow (everything turned on). To remedy that, just turn off the pretty bells and whistles and you can get by with less RAM.

 

[Tullphan]

Originally posted by: Hossenfeffer

What all viruses does it have (if you know)?

It's got the Klez in several different folders.

Also, while the 1.1 Celery may not have problems running XP, he doesn't wish to invest in another 256mb of ram, so it's gonna be stuck with 192mb.

 

[Twista]

Originally posted by: Hossenfeffer
That computer should have no trouble running XP (Home or Pro)

As for reformat or no, give an anti-virus program a shot. Do the housecall thing to fix/identify.

What all viruses does it have (if you know)?

that pc will die w/ 230mb of ram ;-( and your saying 192 ;p hehe

 

[Twista]

finger slipped!

 

[starwarsdad]

If he doesn't want to spend the $50 on more RAM, then he needs Windows 98. Windows 2000 will run with 192 MB but will still not be running anywhere near what most people here would term as acceptable. Windows XP (either version) needs a little more RAM than 2000 but not much. I wholeheartedly agree with the statement that was made about not running XP with less than 512 MB.

Just my $.02