My laptop was infected with virus etc. Cleaned it. Not working perfectly now. Now I want to install Windows 7?

Question

My laptop computer was infected with virus, trojan, etc. Then I installed Avast Free anti-virus. I have scanned my laptop, I have deleted the virus, trojan, etc. I put one Win32:Dialer-KT [PUP] and one Win32:RarMod [Drp] in the Avast Virus Chest.

Also, after I deleted the virus, trojans, etc. I noticed my laptop computer is not actually working perfectly. For example, the Dell Wireless tray applet is always having a red cross on it, saying Connection Status: Unknown. No such interface supported. But my internet connection is still working fine.
(At the moment, I am using Windows Vista Home Premium. I am trying to install Windows 7 Professional now.)
I will try to do a Clean Install for my Windows 7 Professional, I hope once I installed Windows 7 Professional, the problems, such as with the Dell wireless tray applet will not be there. I am going to do a Clean Install, but I will probably not format my hard drive, am I correct?

What will happen to the 2 items inside my Avast Virus Chest when I install Windows 7 Professional? (Can I keep them in the Avast Virus Chest while installing Windows 7?)

I use Windows Easy Transfer to help me, it will save my files and settings into one large file.

Problem is that I am trying to use my ipod classic to store that large file, which is like 67GB. Although my ipod classic has 68.8GB of free space. Later, I checked that my ipod classic actually uses FAT32 file system, does that mean I cannot store that large file worth 67GB into my ipod classic?
I think FAT32 has a file size limit of 4GB. How can I solve this problem? I have not got an external hard drive. My laptop's C: drive read 257 GB free of 359 GB. (I have heard of partition, but I don't know how to do it, I don't know how safe it is and how reliable it is)

Please let me know.

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

To get around the FAT problem you could archive that one large file into smaller 4gb files using a compression program like WinRAR

Answer 2

When you install Windows 7 it will save a folder named " Windows old" to C program files.

After you`ve installed go to the folder and delete it, otherwise it can take up a large amount of hard drive space and may contain stuff that you don`t want on your computer.



Just click - computer - C drive program files - Windows old - right click and delete it.







Your Avast and the viruses will be gone when you install 7, you will need to download and install the software again.



EDIT.

I wouldn`t save files and settings, as there seems to be something wrong with them.

If you have a cd/dvd writer, just save your personal files i.e. music, photos, documents to cd or dvd.



EDIT.

Do you have another drive/partition that you could save to, maybe D drive?



EDIT.

You could move some files to D, but be careful if deleting from there not to delete any restore files as they are probably contained in D drive, and are very handy if you need to restore factory settings at some time in the future.



Also, just because Avast isn`t finding anything doesn`t necessarily mean there is nothing there, Avast is antivirus software, you could have some spyware or malware in there.

Not that it matters if you`re going to reinstall, but you could try a scan with malwarebytes in the meantime.

Answer 3

Nod32 works. I haven't tried Kaspersky, F-Secure, or any AV software in a while though. Avoid Norton and Mcafee. They only perpetuate the problems. Next time, create a image of your hard drive when it's clean and virus-free. Then whenever problems arise, just put that image back on. Easier than removing viruses and trojans.