Browser Theft

My browser got stolen; in order for my computer to work I have to use adaware6.0.
Someone suggested hijack- this but it opens in Photoshop for a strange reason.
So I am told I have to reformat my hard drive, can somebody show me how to do that I have windows 98 Please
Toby

Toby_23 said:

Someone suggested hijack- this but it opens in Photoshop for a strange reason.

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If you have files opening up with other programs than they should, ie. every file opens in winamp no matter what, it sounds like it may be a virus, i had one that did exactly that

Do you have a Win98 floppy bootdisk? (if not go here and download the one you want and make a floppy)

Stick the floppy in and reboot your system. WHILE IT IS BOOTING make sure to go into the bios and set the floppy as the first boot device.

Your system should boot to a command prompt. Just type in
fdisk
and the windows format program will open. Then follow the directions (or type help) to remove the old partition, create a new one. Then reinstall your system to the newly created partition. Which should be nothing more than putting your Win98 CD in the drive, booting from the floppy again and (if setup doen't begin automatically) typing
D:\autoexec.bat
-or-
D:\setup.exe
One of them should work to begin the install.

DWolf

In case you don't know - what DreamingWolf told you to do will entirely delete your hard drive, so make sure you have a current backup of your data before doing anything.

You also have to format the drive before you can install 98 on it. So after you create the partition with fdisk, reboot the computer with the boot disk and type 'format c: /s'. This will create the file system and copy the boot files. If you don't know how to use fdisk, you can just re-format the drive and start from there.

Welcome to the forums!

This is what I would do:
Go to add/remove programs and look for suspicious programs, remove all suspicious programs.
Tell us 'who' stole your browser, and report him to the police (J/K about the last part ).

You don't need a bootdisk to format your drive.....
1) Insert Win98 CD into drive.
2) On boot enter BIOS (Usualy by holding Delete).
3) Set boot device to CD-ROM.
4) Exit and save changes.
5) After POST you'll see 3 options:
..1) Install Windows
..2) Boot With CD-ROM Support
..3) Boot Without CD-ROM Support
(It may look slightly different, just Boot With CD-ROM support)
When it's done loading drivers and such you should be at the A:\ Prompt
Type X: and hit enter (Were X stands for the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive).
Type cd win98 and hit Enter (8 might be an x, but I'm pretty sure that's only with WinME).
Type format x: and hit Enter (Were X stands for the drive letter of the drive you want to format, probably C).
When it's done formatting you can give the partition a name (You can always change it), restart and choose Install Windows when the list with 3 options come up.

If you want to speed up the formatting you could ad /q (Which will perform a quick format), so it would look like this: format c: /q

I didn't think Windows 98 CD's were bootable, how quickly I forget...

yep, only 2nd edition 98 cds are bootable i believe

only 2nd edition 98 cds are bootable i believe

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Get a new belief. The old one is wrong

Try and run Panda online scanner. And Bazooka spyware scanner. A reformate is a drastice measure usally used when no other options. You will lose all data. So that means updates, and everything else you put on that HDD or atleast that partition.

klingens said:

Get a new belief. The old one is wrong

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sorry didnt mean to offend ya there big guy

kct2 said:

In case you don't know - what DreamingWolf told you to do will entirely delete your hard drive, so make sure you have a current backup of your data before doing anything.

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I apologize, kct2 is correct that I should never assume someone's level of experience and should have pointed out that fact

tenchi86 said:

A reformate is a drastice measure usally used when no other options. You will lose all data. So that means updates, and everything else you put on that HDD or atleast that partition.

Click to expand...

While it is true that you will lose what you added to the base system, I would not consider it drastic. In learning to overclock and tweak my system, I have trashed the operating system at least 50 times now. I just make a back up of important files and my browser and email profiles, then reformat. Sometimes it's just easier than trying to track down and remove all the files and registry settings that virii, trojans, spyware and adware stick in your system. Especially if your not comfortable digging through the registry.

Good luck, and if you need step by step help, you can keep posting here or PM me or a senior and we'll walk you through it.

DWolf

klingens said:

Get a new belief. The old one is wrong

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Even the Windows 98 SE CD-ROM I had wasn't bootable .

Make a boot floppy, then:

type: format c:

then type: setup to run the Windows 98 installer.

I would try to scan with a good virus program and see whats up. . . Until you know the problem suggesting any course of action would be hasty. Once you find the virus or problem then try to get a good solution. In most cases you will not need a reformat.

Z

Yes I mean drastice in his case if he has not done this before and did not know he would lose everything. I used Windows ME for a very long time i reinstalled windows probaly once every two weeks. So I do it pretty often. I was just trying to let me relize how it will effect his system.