Un-operating system

Got your own spyware horror story?

A few weeks ago, a friend called me over to help him out with a spyware problem. He said he couldn't get the computer to work right, whatever that meant. He said he was just surfing around with Internet Explorer when--bam!--it became slow as molasses.

When I turned the computer on, a slew of dirty sites loaded in Internet Explorer. Out came my preprepared disk with Avira AntiVir and Spybot Search & Destroy. Just as I inserted the disk, the computer shut itself off. I thought that was weird.

I turned it back on, only to find that Windows wouldn't boot. At this point, I was tempted to just format the whole thing and make sure to remove the infection, but my friend had important data he couldn't lose.

I went back to my house to fetch my Linux System Rescue CD. I partitioned his drive and installed Ubuntu Linux. When I looked at the Windows partition, his data was still there, but all the contents of C:\Windows had been deleted!

I managed to back his data up onto a USB flash drive (which I scanned for a virus, just in case of migration) and made his whole hard drive Ubuntu-only. He hasn't looked back to his nonimpervious operating system yet.

-David
Suwanee, Georgia

Reply from the Download.com editors:

Most malware infections don't stop users from booting up and quickly moving into Safe Mode to combat the intrusion, but what if one does? Quick thinking on David's part and access to a Linux recovery CD rescued his friend's data, and replaced the operating system.

This would be a bold move for most loyal Windows users, however, Linux distributions are gaining ground with mainstream PC users. Some Dell laptops, for example, now ship with Ubuntu operating systems instead of Windows, and open source alternatives to Microsoft software are becoming increasingly sophisticated, for example OpenOffice.org, a Microsoft Office competitor.

Switching operating systems may seem an intimidating step to some Windows users, but it's a move that chronically inflicted users might consider. If you're not ready to take the plunge, Peter Butler explains how free apps like Wubi let you test drive Linux Ubuntu without creating a boot CD or partitioning your hard drive.