can you give me a list of the tools/utilities used to remove/fix infected computers? for fixing boot problems, fixing internet connection, fixing everything..

In your opinion, what are the best free boot disks? I am partial to ERD Commander 2005, BartPE and UBCD4Win. Any other great ones that I am missing?

What seems to be the most popular hdd erasing tool?

I’ve heard of a few like KillDrive, DBAN, and WipeDrive. Do you have any recs?

I’m looking for one that will work from a bootable cd. Also, I’m using a SATA drive.

Thanks!

NetWorking Tools BEST OF 2007 Bootable WinPE -118in1- [MUST HAVE] (AIO) [h33t.migel]

Overview:Acronis True Image Home 2009 is easy backup and restore solution for home users. One-click Protection option allows you secure hard disk in seconds, you choose what, where and when to back up. After that, backups occur automatically or with just one click. With Acronis True Image Home 2009 you can:- Create full hard drive backup (the same as image of the system) of entire PC and restore it in case system crashes. E.g. You create full hard drive backup and save it on external drive, then your computer refuse to boot at all. What to do next? You boot from Acronis bootable disc (you can create it within the program using Media Builder Option, see Acronis True Image Home 2009 manual) -> Choose Restore option -> Select backup of the system you previously created (it’s a single large file with .tib extension) -> and that’s all, just wait till restore process is finished. Your system with all applications, settings, e-mails and data will be brought to the time backup was created.- Create file/folder backup, apart from full hard drive backup you can backup separate files and folders, the advantage between simple copy/paste is compression level within backup archive. The size of normal compression is about 50%- Clone disk option allows transfer all data from source hard disk to destination hard disk. E.g. you want to use bigger drive, you attach new drive to computer -> choose Clone Disk option -> wait till process is finished. The destination hard disk drive will be bootable and become an exact copy of the source drive. All you have to do is to change source drive with destination drive. Note that source drive will not be erased, so you can keep using it. Vendor, model and size of new hard disk can differ from source one.- Backup application settings, e-mails and system state. Application settings backup allows you back up settings of certain application and incase it malfunction restore them in seconds. E-mail backup protect your e-mail address book, accounts and settings. System state backup save current Windows settings.Features:- Try&Decide Try new software and browse the web without endangering your computer from malware or unknown software. After testing, you can decide whether to keep or discard changes to your system.- Acronis Startup Recovery Manager. Boot your computer after a failure to start the recovery process simply by selecting the F11 key, even if your operating system has failed.- Incremental and Differential Backups. Save disk space and time by performing differential and incremental backups.- Live Backups. Backup from Windows while running other applications.- Backup Scheduling. Run backups automatically at preset or elapsed time when user is idle, on user log/logout, on system startup/shutdown, and in coordination with other events.- Acronis Secure Zone. Protect your system by saving an image to a special hidden partition on your hard disk where it can be retrieved after a disaster.- Zip archive format support. In addition to Acronis powerful .tib data compression backup format you can save your data in .zip format and recover it without Acronis True Image program.- Windows Vista style interface. – Automatic computer shutdown after backup or restoration finishes.- Archive to various places. You can save full, incremental and differential backups almost anywhere. You now you have ultimate flexibility in choosing a place to store from the same data series: on a network share, CD/DVD, USB stick, FTP-server, any local internal or external hard drive. You can now also give meaningful names to incremental and differential backups, for example, “C-drive-before-repartitioning”.-Making reserve copies of your backups. You can make reserve copies of your backups and save them on a network drive, or a USB storage device. You have a choice of making a reserve copy as regular (flat) files, a .zip compressed file, and a .tib file.- Consolidation. You can define rules for consolidating your archives to reduce storage space. Merge an older full backup with several incremental backups to quickly create a new full backup; subsequent backups are based on the newly-created full backup.- Exclude Files and Folders. Back up only the data you want to keep and save disk space. You can exclude files by their extensions or providing path.- Security, performance and privacy tools. When you replace a hard drive on your PC, Acronis ensures you don’t inadvertently give personal or organizational data to cyber thieves. Acronis Drive Cleanser, a $50 value is included at no charge. It protects sensitive data from view by wiping a disk clean of all data. If you don’t need to erase the entire disk, File Shredder safely destroys individual files so they can’t be resurrected. A System clean-up utility restores system efficiency.Supported OS:- Windows Vista (all versions and including x64 edition)- Windows XP SP1, SP2, SP3- Windows XP Professional x64 edition.Note: Using Acronis bootable disc you can backup and restore Linux partitions (Linux Ext2, Ext3, ReiserFS, and Linux SWAP) as well as Windows FAT16/32, NTFS.Minimum system requirements:- Pentium processor or higher- 256 MB RAM- CD-RW or DVD-RW drive for bootable media creationSupported backup storage:- Internal and external hard disks, – Networked storage devices (NAS devices)- CD-R(W), DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM, BD-R (Blu-ray)- ZIP Jazz and other removable media (flash drives)- P-ATA (IDE), S-ATA, SCSI, IEEE1394 (Firewire) and USB 1.0 / 2.0 drives, PC card storage devices

What is the best Antivirus Protection Software that you would recommend that is free or has a free trial period?

Antivirus security is essential to protect your computer from unwanted viruses affecting your PC parts adversely. In fact one should employ all efforts to keep your computer 100% safe. If you use computer only for writing and for printing purposes without using Internet then your computer would be safe from outside Trojans. It is common that your computer get attacked from viruses and other malware so it is mandatory on our part to employ anti virus security to get protected from undesired malware.An individual do several things with his personal computer like receives emails, instant messaging downloads files and many more. While doing all these he may allow any malware or virus to get entered in his PC. It’s like an open home which invites thief and other corrupt people to take advantage to steal things from your house to harm you. So working on internet is also similar and invites Trojans and other malware. When a computer is connected to a network then it begins to listen for communications from outside. This led to the things called as ports which are usually the special doors to the computers. Through these doors any malware or virus can easily enter your computer. So it is important to install the best antivirus software in your PC which can protect all your files and data from being infected by the Trojans. Sometimes it becomes difficult for you to judge which anti virus is the most effective. You can read the reviews of several anti virus software online to know about their effectiveness in healing the malware. Good quality software is one which searches for the viruses and heals them instantly so that none of your files get corrupted. You can find several online companies offering best anti virus software and shows user rating and people’s feedback which helps people to judge whether the software is good enough to get downloaded or not. Apart from installing antivirus software for antivirus security, other things which should be taken care of include:•    Don’t use internet explorer as your main browser as it is more susceptible to get infected with Trojans. •    Put a firewall between your internal network and the internet. •    Employ a firewall on each individual computer.•    Use a good spyware program.All these points will help you in protecting your PC from malware and other harmful viruses.

In this technology driven world the use of computers and the internet is only increasing. However everyone is aware of one fact that internet use may invite some Trojans or malware to enter your Personal computer. The best way to keep away from unwanted malware or viruses is to install good quality antivirus software. Below are some of the steps to choose the best antivirus software for computer security.•    Try it before buying it. Yes before buying any antivirus internet security software, try it for some days so that you can analyze its functioning and how effective it works. In this way you will get the feel of the software. There may be cases wherein softwares are easy to operate by your friends but you may find them difficult. So always try the software yourself as ultimatley you have to use it and not your friends. •    Try to find out its effectiveness. You should know that your antivirus software protects your computers from which kind of threats. Some of the most common threats to your computer include Spyware, adware, Trojans and worms. Besides giving protection against malware, your antivirus software should be able to uncover those malware threats. •    Choose the most user-friendly antivirus software. Choose that software which has a user friendly interface. See whether the software comes with manual guide or not. Manual guide is good to have because in case you get any difficult in operating then you can always refer to the guide. Also know which support services the software provides like live chat service, call center, 24/7 online mail service or remote assistance. •    Pick that package that does daily virus definition update. The more it updates its virus database the more you will gain protection from the latest virus attack. •    Pick that software that has low system resources consumption. Know how much system resources will be required for operating of the antivirus software. •    Look for multiple features in the antivirus internet security software. More the features, better it will be for your computer. Some of the add-on features and protection include firewall, spam blocker, anti key logger, anti screen grabber, and parental control.So, all these points should be kept in mind while buying any antivirus software for your computer.