Backing up files on a badly malware infested computer.

[Liam Proven]

On 26 January 2012 17:30, doug <dmcgarrett at optonline.net> wrote:
> On 01/26/2012 12:07 AM, Bill Stanley wrote:
>>
>> >> That's a bad thing. The BIOS may have been infected. Did you check the
>>>>
>>>> boot order (CD player, HDD, USB, etc)?
>>
>>
>> An expert of removing viruses said that BIOS viruses are rare.  As such, I
>> am assuming that there isn't one.  I did succeed in putting a new operating
>> system in.  While I was at it, I put in an unused HD that I had and that HD
>> became the master drive (C:) with her old drive becoming F:.  When I tried
>> deleting the old installation except for the data directories I was not able
>> to delete those two files for Adobe Reader. No matter how hard I try, they
>> are still there.  Read about the details in a previous posting.  It would be
>> nice to get rid of these files because they are preventing me from doing an
>> efficient defrag of the disk.  ( CURSE YOU ADOBE! )
>>
> /snip/
>
> I'm not an expert, but I think this will work:  (I'm assuming you don't have
> Linux on your new drive.  If you do, then the first
> step is unnecessary.)  I don't remember if Ubuntu has Dolphin file manager,
> but I'm assuming it does.

No, it doesn't. Dolphin is part of KDE and is therefore only found in
Kubuntu, the KDE edition of Ubuntu. Standard Ubuntu is based on the
GNOME environment using Ubuntu's own Unity desktop. The file manager
is Nautilus.

Saying that, the rest of what you wrote mostly applies.

> Boot the system on a Linux Live CD.  (Presumably you have replaced the
> defective drive.)  This Linux CD should have Dolphin on
> it.  Using Dolphin, select the drive that has the Adobe files on it.  Just
> selecting it will mount it.  Now, depending on what's next, you
> can try to delete the Adobe files.  The easiest:  just find the files in
> Dolphin and delete them.  This may not work, since they
> may have some permission bit set.  In this case, you will have to use the
> command line.  What you are going to do is to
> remove all the permissions that prevent a  user from removing the files.
>  You will already know, from Dolphin, what directory
> the files are in, so navigate to that directory.  Do su and put in your
> password, to become superuser.  (In Ubuntu, you may
> have to do sudo in front of each command, instead of using su.)

``sudo -s'' works.

> Then issue
> the command chmod 4777 filename.  Now issue
> rm filename.  (The filename must include the entire entry, with any
> extensions, etc.)  Do ls -la and see if the filename is gone from
> the directory.  It should be, unless I missed something. Do this for the
> other Adobe file, and you're done.
>
> If I've missed something, someone smarter than me will chime in and tell
> you.


-- 
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