Police Pro Virus Reformat?

[enjoidooks]

Hi there, I too have been infected with the Police Pro Virus. I don't have much time (or patience) to really fix this problem, so I'm just going to reformat my entire computer (it's about time anyways). My question is this, is it safe to copy some of my files and folders onto an external, even though this virus is on my computer? I can't go into safe mode, every time I try to do this I get the blue screen of death. So is it still okay to transfer files/folder to an external, or would that risk the chance of the virus somehow coming onto the external and then back onto the computer after I reformat?

Thanks so much!

[jholland1964]

Hi there, I too have been infected with the Police Pro Virus. I don't have much time (or patience) to really fix this problem, so I'm just going to reformat my entire computer (it's about time anyways). My question is this, is it safe to copy some of my files and folders onto an external, even though this virus is on my computer? I can't go into safe mode, every time I try to do this I get the blue screen of death. So is it still okay to transfer files/folder to an external, or would that risk the chance of the virus somehow coming onto the external and then back onto the computer after I reformat?

Thanks so much!

Well, I wouldn't do it, but the choice is yours. If you do, each and every file MUST be scanned for this infection BEFORE you attempt to put it back onto the newly reformatted computer or before you use it elsewhere. I cannot say for certain the infection wouldn't go from the computer to the external drive, but judging by a couple threads we've had here all ready, it can. Recently we had one computer which was totally cleaned of the infection...BUT when scans were done infection was found ONLY on the external drive because the user was transferring files BEFORE doing a clean up. So the infection was then on the external drive which then reinfected the computer each time connection was made between the two. The user would back up his files, clean his computer, it would test completely clean but the external held the infection and it remained there until he reformatted the external drive.

[Salem]

Sure, you can make a backup of anything you want. What you do afterwards however requires a great deal of care.
Also, use media like CD (not a USB stick which has plug and pray issues).

Malware can infest all sorts of different files though, so you should treat your backup with a very high degree of suspicion.

I would suggest that once you reach "base camp" with your new install (basic OS + network) that you scan your backup with as many tools as you can grab hold of.
http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread27570.html
If things go badly, you haven't wasted a lot of time reinstalling all your apps. Unless you get a clean sweep in the following checks, I'd probably regard the first reinstall as sacrificial anyway.

Remember to turn off all the "handy" features like autorun, autoplay and indexing, which can cause windows to go reading media before you're ready. Also turn off things like "preview pane" in explorer, and also in explorer, turn ON things like "show file extensions" and other options aimed at hiding information from you. Practice with known clean CDs first; ideally the CD drive should close and it should just sit there. If there's lots of activity, then that's a bad sign for loading your backup.

Anything you want to keep which passes all the tests is probably fine, and these should be copied to a new backup.

Anything failing, well you need to judge how well it might have been dis-infected (or indeed whether you can live without it).
Word documents I would re-save as RTF files (preserves basic formatting), excel files as CSV files (which doesn't).
Most other file types I would save as simple text files and exported image (jpg,png) images as appropriate.

If you have to do a lot of running repair, then perhaps reinstall the OS again when you're done and rescan your new backup.

If you're satisfied with your new backup, then destroy your virus ridden backup. You don't want to accidentally load it by mistake, looking for something else.

As an alternative (suggested recently in another thread)
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Boot-Manager-Disk/UBCD4WIN.shtml
boot a minimal windows + tools off a CD and scan your normal OS without having to fight against things which may already have loaded themselves.
Or even use this approach to scan your backup before going to the trouble of scanning from your newly installed OS.
I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but the theory seems nice.

Oh, and if jholland1964 or crunchie or PhilliePhan tell you any of the above is BS, then listen to them!