Verisign virus/malware?

[Hayamaneko]

Recently I have noticed that many of the sites the have a secures login /paaword encrypation(chase, amazon acount login etc) load very very slowely or not at all. At first I just ignored it but after talking to a rep from my bank I was told that this slowness was probably due to a virus of some kind. I scan my computer for malware, virus and spyware several times, even doing the entire proccess again in safe mode. The problem presist. Is thier anything else I can do that might get rid of this so called virus so that I can avoid having to reformat everything? And FYI, I have Windows 7 ultimate and do not have a recovery disk so doing the reformating might be difficult

[Kotohono]

Have you ran on-boot scan with your anti-virus software?
This is generally more effective at finding something that's good at being hidden than a scan running normally, as it doesn't give the virus/trojan a chance to load into memory.

If that yields nothing, I'd recommend trying Combofix, though it's bit more complex than most standard anti-virus. Reading some on properly using before hand is a good idea.

If you're worried about a keylogger risk, then get this addon for firefox[works for other browers if you do full install].

P.S. You can mail order recovery disks from the company you got your computer from generally, though I'd only use this as a last resort.

[Hayamaneko]

Originally Posted by Konakaga

P.S. You can mail order recovery disks from the company you got your computer from generally, though I'd only use this as a last resort.

I built my computer myself so I do 't think thier is any company I can contact that would send me a recovery disk. Also my copy of windows is, shall we say, non-legit so aquiring a recovery cd via Microsoft is out of the question too. Is thier another way of reformating without the recovery disk?

[SeijiSensei]

One thing you can try is to boot off a "live-CD" version of Linux and use its browser to see if you have the same problems as you do with your Windows installation. The easiest one for people not used to Linux distributions is Ubuntu. Download and burn this CD image file, then boot with the CD in the drive. Choose the option to try Ubuntu without installing. After the desktop appears, you should find a copy of Firefox in the top menus under Applications > Internet.

[Hayamaneko]

I've managed to solve the problem but I would still like to know a method of reformatting my hard disk without a recovery disk

edit:
spoke too soon. I no longer have slow loading times on secure sites but I know get a half loaded pop-up menu that ask for an additional password after I've entered the normal one. I was told by a person I spoke to over the phone that belonged to my bank that this was an indication of a virus of some sort. I've already run bit defender virus scan in boot mode as well as deleting a possible key longing software with the help of Security Task Manager but I am still getting this problem

[Kotohono]

Just a thought on issue you're having, I don't suppose your bank has recently added a 3-D Secure Card System, as the system has been mistaken for scams/malware/phishing/etc before due to it's poor implementation, so person you spoke to simply might not know about it. And it does use to pop-up to ask for an additional password as part of the protocol for the system.

[ameskitty]

Just to clarify: There is absolutely no way to reformat a hard disk without getting rid of the operating system on board. Reformatting erases everything.

(I could mention something about the OS potentially being on a different partition than the data files, but that's an unlikely setup and it sounds like you need a completely clean OS with viruses that bad.)

Before I recommend anything else, I'm going to say that you should either uninstall and then reinstall the browser you're using, clearing as much configuration data as you can, or, especially if you're using the nearly built-in Internet Explorer, try another browser. If that doesn't fix your issues (and it sounds like you've used all available AV options), it sounds like your computer might be sick beyond it being worth the effort to fix it .

Your best bet in that case is to save as many important (and hopefully clean!) files as you can to an external hard drive/blank DVDs/whatnot and then install a fresh, new OS over the contents of the hard drive, choosing to reformat the hard disk when you choose an install location. If by "not having a recovery disk" you mean that you've lost the Windows 7 install disc (a recovery disk isn't relevant to your situation), try downloading Ubuntu and installing that instead until you can get a hold of one. It's really not that scary, and it has all the software that you'll need to hold you over built in .

It's annoying to have to reinstall everything, I know (and I've done this before - thanks sucky Windows 2000), but your computer will probably run faster, perhaps more than it did even before the viruses hit, and you can be almost 100% sure that all viruses are gone.

EDIT: Wait, the above sounds pretty plausible...and looking past your most recent question I don't think your problems sound that bad. I would definitely make sure you actually have a problem before reinstalling the OS (although the browser thing is still a good bet in either case).

[Hayamaneko]

Originally Posted by ameskitty

If by "not having a recovery disk" you mean that you've lost the Windows 7 install disc (a recovery disk isn't relevant to your situation),

Why not? I can't reformat the drive with the regular installation disk and I read someplace that you needed the recovery disk in order to do that