what do you do with a laptop that you do not use anymore or how do you dispose of it,mine got so infected and virus could not be removed.

Have you considered reformatting the hard drive, and reinstalling the operating system?

What steps were taken to remove the virus? Was it taken to a shop or did you try yourself?

went through mc afee over the phone(india)and had to pay 89.00 on credit card but I got a refund as they could not remove the virus it was that bad as I lost all control of the computer.I bought a toshiba instead of dell.

So you already bought a new laptop? I'd haul the old one to a reputable shop and let them take a shot at it. Worst case they re-format your hard drive. Toshiba and Dell are both good machines, but the hardware doesn't matter once you allow a virus on board.

You could also replace the hard drive and hope the virus is not in the BIOS.

Any reputable shop would do a low level format, restore your system with your original disks, and then put in all the updates from the Microsoft site.

That's what I do when there is a virus that is being difficult ... only because it would consume too much time to track it down ... it's cheaper, for the customer to do what I said in the first paragraph.

Now, if you have valuable files, I would attempt to retrieve them ... for a price.

quote:

Originally posted by 9291719:
went through mc afee over the phone(india)and had to pay 89.00 on credit card but I got a refund as they could not remove the virus it was that bad as I lost all control of the computer.I bought a toshiba instead of dell.

Good call on the Toshiba! Have had mine for about 3 years and it's still running like a champ even through every day drives, bumps, knicks and bruises.

I was going to buy a Mac but they cost wat to much,more people have dell's than any other so I think the hackers attack dell more than the others.Thanks.pedro

quote:

I was going to buy a Mac but they cost wat to much,more people have dell's than any other so I think the hackers attack dell more than the others.Thanks.pedro

Hackers don't target hardware, meaning a brand of computer, they target the software (Windows). The reason Macs have fewer virus problems is that there are fewer of them so hackers focus on Windows instead.

Geez, I wish I had a good laptop with a virus. I would install Linux on it & GO.

what is linux.

Linux is a free operating system with lots of free applications. I have been using it for several years (and am using it now). It is NOT an exact replacement for Windows - it does not run the programs you use on Windows, but there are applications that will replace some of your Windows apps. Open Office will handle most MS Office files (EXCEPT for MS Access files).
There are a bunch of slightly different distributions ("brands"), but the one I have been using is Ubuntu. You can find more information at:
www dot ubuntu dot com
I think it is about a 600 megabyte download, but you can burn an iso cd and boot from the cd. If you do that & like it, you can use the cd to reformat your hard drive and install it. You can even have it partition to save your existing data.
There is obviously a lot to learn when you go to a completely different operating system, but I think it worth the effort. I have kept my XP partition, but only use it occasionally, mostly to update my antivirus - which isn't needed on linux.

edited to add, here is a good site with info on lots of Linux distros:
h t t p://distrowatch dot com/

Thanks.I'll check it out.