How does one recover data from a desktop that has a virus?
July 29, 2009 by Data Recovery and Data Backup Tips
Filed under More Data Recovery Answers
Can you answer esweetie01’s question about Data Recovery?:
I have a hp desktop and when I turn on the computer, it doesn’t boot to the windows XP desktop. It just keeps restarting itself. I took it to a computer repair shop and was told that my computer has a virus. I want to know what type of equipment and/or tools does one need to recover data on my cpu before removing the virus.
Recover My Lost Data
I have a hp desktop and when I turn on the computer, it doesn’t boot to the windows XP desktop. It just keeps restarting itself. I took it to a computer repair shop and was told that my computer has a virus. I want to know what type of equipment and/or tools does one need to recover data on my cpu before removing the virus.
Recover My Lost Data
Data Recovery Feedback: hire a professional
Data Recovery Feedback: put the recovery disks you have that came with your system
don not do a format
you need to chose the option partial recovery
get the system running to back up your data then
do a full format
Data Recovery Feedback: Some viruses run at startup. If you can boot at all, for example into Safe Mode, you can use any number of tools to view and disable files from running at startup. is one.
Besides that, you could try running a Linux Live CD such as Ubuntu. A “Live” CD will run an operating system without installing it over the top of your existing system. The latest version of Ubuntu - 7.10 - will mount and read Windows file systems such as FAT32 and NTFS so you can copy data off your hard drive on to a USB drive or burn it to DVD for example.
If you take this option, you really need to find a way to ensure the data you recover has not been corrupted. If it has, you will just spread the virus to your new installation/machine.
Once you’re happy you have recovered your data, you can then look at blasting away your infected installation or trying to repair it.
Good Luck.
Data Recovery Feedback: To recover data successfully you need to stop using the HDD. Take the hard drive out and put it in another computer and take off only the personal files you need. Scan them for viruses. The computer you use should be safe as most viruses/Trojans etc need to be run within the operating system in which they were executed, which in this case is not the running OS.
Data Recovery Feedback: In worst case, format the hard drive. Normally, people call it reformatting the computer.