Agreed...but, Gunner has perfect, up-to-the-minute back-ups...right Gunner?


"Dave Hinz" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:33:02 GMT, Tom Gardner wrote:

"Gunner" wrote in message
...
My $#@!! kid turned off the firewall (again) and downloaded something
with a nasty malware called W32/Gaelicum.A
snip

Like I tell my computer customers: "What did you do before you had
computers?...do that!"
Fdisk, format, install fresh OS.

A brute-force sledgehammer approach is rarely warranted. If there's
important data on the box, that isn't backed up, fixing it rather than
starting over is the appropriate course of action. Time/budget willing,
of course. I've only had to resort to format/reinstall (thinks) about
5% of the time, and usually it was in conjunction with a "You know, you
could use a bigger hard drive anyway".


You DO have back-ups of anything
important! When everything is perfect again, burn a DVD image. I feel
your
pain! If you screw around trying to fix it all you will spend three
times
the amount of time.

But, if he has important data on the system disk, it may be time well
spent.