my compaq presario c300 has a virus. i did a pc covery w/o discs. didn’t work.

i am going to pay to order the discs cause i miss placed them. WILL THE RECOVERY DISCS WORK NO MATTER WHAT? i don’t have the money to waste!

thanks

Answer:
If you’ve not changed any hardware from the original say in which your received your machine, then the recovery disks will work. If you’ve changed mother board, video card, memory, etc. the recovery disk will not work. Here's the reason why. I had HP send me disks because the Personal computer wouldn’t boot. HP had sent me a Personal computer with a motherboard that over heated. They replace the MB with a newer one. They sent it back but it didn’t boot. I ordered the the recovery disks, but they’re configured for the original MB and will not load. the only fix was to buy another copy of Vista. HP told me too bad, even though it was their MB both times that tanked the machine.

Once you load the new copy of OS, make sure you make a new recovery disk because HP will be NO HELP.

Sorry, but I hope this saves you a little cash.

Answer:
If all you had was a virus that did damage to software, and not any type of hardware problem, the recovery disks will definitely work for you to resolve that or any future software problem.

Make sure you run the full system recovery (with data loss) to be sure you get rid of the virus. If you have an option to keep files and data, you might keep the virus around.

Keep in mind that it is possible, although not usual, for a recovery to have problems, and you might have to re-run the recovery a 2nd time.

Answer:
you need to remove the virus first or it will infect the recovery. try this first.

its free. http://free.avg.com/ww.download-avg-anti…

Answer:
Let me answer your Qn in steps like you asked them.

Qn: Do recovery discs ALWAYS work?

Ans: NO. They would not work if H/W has been changed or HDD damaged (OEM CDs from Dell/HP/IBM/Gateway etc won’t work if H/W changes have been made, XP retail will work. No CD might work if damage is H/W, or the user is not tech savvy enough.)

I would not go for a format & recover to remove a virus. What happened with a recovery from the system? If it did not work, then there’s no guarantee that a CD will work. Probably what the techs at HP want you to do is run Diskpart/FDISK & then install OS again.. Again thats not something most people can talk you over the phone..

I'm curious to know what happened after you ran a recovery?

Here are the steps: I guess you forgot to take out peripherals..

0) Take out all the extra H/W that your personal didn’t come with, Printers, USB peripherals, etc.

1) Format & recover the system. To format, either use the windows CD that came with the personal (boot with the CD in the drive, it should be picked up by default) or when booting when you see your personal logo, start tapping F10 This should take you to a recovery menu. If you have updated your system regularly & have the latest Service Packs, you may get a message ike the version of windows on the system is newer than what you’re trying to install. Go ahead & install anyways.

here is a site that shows you step by step what to expect: http://www.windowsxphome.windowsreinstal…

2) Install a good AV BEFORE you plug internet in.

3) Update AV the FIRST thing when you go on the internet.

4) Enable windows Updates so that your personal has all the available patches. In fact I'd say after updating AV, go to windowsupdates.Microsoft.com & get ALL the updates.

5) Now get a good Firewall if you have a always on internet connection.

6) Get some good Anti Spyware/Malware too, Spybot “Search & Destroy” & “Ad-Aware” are what I use, they’re good & they come free. Also get something like McAfee's Siteadvisor, which warns you which sites are known sites for sending spyware/malware/spammers.