Thanks, [@jayk], I try to share what I’ve got.
I wish more folks would share more than one-liners.
And I wish Ashraf would put the reviews and the discussions on this page because at least for Greatis Unhackme, the reviews are full of discussion, so read [ https :// sharewareonsale. com/s/unhackme-sale ] too, there’s lots there.
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I forgot to report on rootkit revealers and cleaners, and it’s been a long time since I had to deal with a rootkit, so I really have no recent experience even seeing one.
I tend to dismount any misbehaving drive, read it as an external drive in another computer ( that is protected by anti-malware ), rebuilt the MBR Master Boot Record and or track zero and or the FAT File Allocation Table and or the directories, perform surface recovery with no-free SpinRite and or not free HDDRegenerator or free HD Sentinel, copy out the data, using a data recovery program, even free Piriform [ Recuva ] sometimes gets what I am after, and I often see free versions of EaseUS [ Data Recovery Wizard ] and equivalent from many others such as MiniTool and so on ( I always search [ “free ___” and “compare free ___” then download and try a few things, and I hardly ever end up having to directly pay for the utilities I need … but I was a beta tester for SpinRite, and later, unrelated HDDRegenerator proved to be a terrific alternative using completely different technology, so I now have various ways to recover magnetic media ), then return the bad drive to the original computer, blank it, surface-test and verify it, re-partition it, re-format it, re-install the operating system, and re-install software, which produces a working computer with absolutely no infections, fresh and new, and usually take less time than endlessly trying to fix a bad infection and hoping I got it and there are no “holes” left behind after removing it – like a bullet wound, removing the bullet is only half the solution, we then have to heal the damage, and none of the anti-malware programs have healing capabilities after they remove a virus, hence the need to rebuild from fresh scratch anyway … and if we know we are going to rebuild anyway, then removing the virus is a waste of time because we are going to do a destructive surface-write-read-test over it anyway.
I share all of that to remind folks that no problem is so big it cannot be run from, sometimes we need to explore non-linear alternatives and not getting stuck on thinking about a problem in only one way, with only one approach, with only one piece of software.
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