On 14 Nov 2010, " wrote in
alt.home.repair:

I was recently told by a customer service rep that no virus can
ever be removed, that if you get a virus, the hard drive needs to
be erased and reformatted. Not the kind of advice I was looking
to get.

No, that's not true, but depending on what you've been infected with,
it may be more time and trouble than this "customer service rep" thinks
it's worth to completely clean it out. And the virus/malware might
break or corrupt things while it's living there such that things might
not work quite right even after it's been eliminated. The process of
leaning it out can also break things.

I've only been infected with a virus a couple of times, though not for
years, because I know what to do and not to do. But I've cleaned
infected systems for many other people, and it can be a long and
tedious process. Sometimes it's a better use of everybody's time (and
money, if I'm not doing it gratis) to just re-format the disk and re-
install everything.

I am having a few problems, and I would like to be able to fix
them without hauling my computer off to someone who will charge an
arm and a leg to tell me the problem can't be fixed. I am capable
of following step-by-step instructions, which is what one used to
get at SpywareInfo.org. I am, however, somewhat computer
illiterate, so I need the walk-you-through-it kind of help they
provided.

Be prepared for hours or days of frustration.