Trojan! Help!

[casmirpulaski]

Okay, this is gonna get really confusing so just stick with me here.

My dad works for a company similar to hud and he found a laptop. He gave me the laptop, and with me never having one i wanted to reformat it. A friend of mine told me she had a disk to reformat a computer so I thought it would work...when it was finished I turned the laptop back on, to see that it didn't reformat it, it was a disk to install window's xp. I put in the serial number and it said it didn't recognize it. So my friend had a guy she knew come over and look at it. He typed in some code on my laptop and he fixed it. He told me that the code itself was a trojan but it wasn't gonna harm anything. And he told me to do a scan everyday with AVG but not to remove the trojan. Well, now i have another trojan that came out of no where...how exactly am i supposed to know which one is which. And if I reformat the laptop will it go back to the install screen? i don't want to screw my laptop up anymore. I just need someone who knows what they're talking about fix it. Any suggestions?

 

[berry120]

The code was a trojan? He probably means that he's installed some piece of software to stop XP moaning that it's an illegal copy (which is exactly what it sounds like is installed on your laptop!)

If that's the case, the only legal route is for you to obtain a legal copy of XP or some other version of windows; or try and get it going with an open source OS such as linux (though I'd advise against that in this instance since with all due respect you seem to have relatively limited knowledge in this area.)

 

[casmirpulaski]

i just don't have the money to buy windows xp and install it.
i was really hoping i could just reformat it and delete everything off of it and start anew with it.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Yes, you can just reformat and reinstall if you have a legit copy of XP and the key to go with it.

Try downloading and running this to rid your system of the trojan: Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

 

[casmirpulaski]

I don't have a copy of Xp. Like i said, my dad found the laptop and my old roommate screwed it up by putting in a burned copy of windows xp and installed it. Then when it asked for a serial number the number on the disk was invalid. The only way I could have gotten it to work was if I bought another windows xp disc from best buy or something. moneys a bit of an issue so that isn't an option.

I've also been trying to uninstall AOL. But it says that there isn't a version of AOL on my laptop...so why is it taking up 31.4 memory in my computer and why is it on my home screen?

 

[lewblue83]

you can get windows 7 for 100 bucks. small price to pay to avoid possible legal action and viruses

 

[casmirpulaski]

don't have a job, no income, i go to school full time.

if it helps any it's a piece of crap dell.

 

[berry120]

don't have a job, no income, i go to school full time.

if it helps any it's a piece of crap dell.

Sorry, but it boils down to this: if you want a legal route out of this (and that's the only route we're permitted to discuss on these forums) then your only options are to pay something and get a propriety OS such as windows, or don't pay anything and get a free OS such as Ubuntu.

If you want to get windows on there for free / illegally, I'm afraid that's something you'll have to do under your own steam, taking complete responsibility for your actions in the process!

 

[smileyface1]

I can give you a free .iso of Windows 7. You just need to burn it on a cd. You don't need to buy anything.