Expert: Keith Davis - 3/5/2009

Question
Sir,
I just bought a new notebook PC of DELL Inspiron 1525 with Windows Vista Home Basic Service Pack 1,McAfee Security Center's 15 months Subscription,.
My problem is that i have very important data on my old laptop,which i have transferred to a pen-drive and also to a non-rewritable DVD.This pen drive itself seems to be infected as its name is shown a "flsah drive" instead of "flash drive" in windows balloon while detecting the hardware.
However,My old laptop was affected with a major virus.It is similar to what i found on net that is W32/VBSilly-B of  http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/w32vbsillyb.html   website.The virus in my computer has already copied itself to each and every folder as an executable file of fixed size of "259 KB" with the name of that folder in which it is.Even if i delete it it comes again.It seems that the virus is eating up my data also.
Sir,I don't want to repair that virus from my old computer,but, i want that when i copy my data containing the virus from the pen drive or the DVD it shouldn't get into my new laptop.
Sir,what i request u is to kindly tell a method to copy the data without spreading the virus in PC,as the folders of data also contain virus in them and also whether to copy it from pen drive or DVD.The data is of 4.03 GB.

Thanking you,Sir,in advance,
Rohit


Answer

The first thing to do is make sure McAfee will detect and remove the virus (at least quarantine it). I do not use McAfee. I have come across viruses on client's machines that McAfee and Norton's would not detect. I use AVG anti-virus. It is better and, believe it or not is free. You can get it from here: http://www.download.com/1770-20_4-0.html?query=AVG+Anti+Virus+Free+Edition&tag=4...

Aside from what anti-virus to use this is how I would transfer data with the best chance of not spreading the virus from one PC to another.
1. Make sure Autorun is disabled on your new PC. Here are instructions: http://antivirus.about.com/b/2008/03/05/disable-autorun.htm
2. After disabling autorun put the flash drive in, go to My Computer, right click on the flash drive and click scan with McAfee, AVG (or whatever anti-virus will remove or quarantine the virus). Repeat this procedure with the DVD.

Keep in mind that this may not isolate the virus from the data that it is attached to or the file it is in and the result may be the whole file, program, application, etc. may be removed or quarantined. With a little luck you may be able to "clean" the files.

Good luck!

Keith