June 9, 2007

Not meaning any disrespect what-so-ever but before we were talking about reformatting the hard drive … is that something I won't have to do now?

Hi, No, we are cleaning up your current installation so you don't have to reformat your hard drive. I posted the warning and provided reformatting as an option because the infection was very dangerous and for some users a reformat is the best choice. If you are still unsure about this issue in any way or have any further questions please let me know

hmmm … help? Ok … how dangerous will the threat be if we don't do the reformat? Is the question really that I wouldn't know how big the threat is until it is too late? I really do not want to reformat but I need that computer to do all my household business. It is the computer I need to be the reliable one in the household as it is the one the adults use. I need a way to know how to weigh how big a risk it is. Have you seen others infected with this be successful without reformatting ?

Hi lyonbythesea,

how dangerous will the threat be if we don't do the reformat

I've helped clean many backdoor infections and always been confident that the machines were clean. From the information you have posted, it appears that we have successfully removed the backdoor infection (although we still have further cleaning and checking to do), but as the backdoor could have been used to install *anything* else, even after very thorough cleaning I can't be 100% certain, I can only be confident. I recommend you have a read of this article, it explains the issue very well:

http://www.dslreports.com/faq/10063

It is the computer I need to be the reliable one

The issue won't be reliability as such, it will be whether you require 100% certainty that your machine hasn't been modified or compromised in some way which we won't be able to detect during cleaning. We will clean and check your machine very thoroughly but in the end, the only way to be sure of this is to reformat.

I'm sorry I can't give you an easy choice, only you can decide on this. Let me know if you have further questions or need more info.

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