id like to give a great big fuck you to..

[peter dragon]

the makers of surf side kick 3. If I ever see you I will punch you in the face. fucking bastards. I lost every thing. all my software and all. it only took 5 reloads of windows to completely clean and stop the infection. fucking assholes. p.s. the makers of sygate have sold out to symantic and is nolonger offered for free. double assholes.

:?

[ElTaco]

That sucks. One suggestion for the future is to:
a: keep backups on DVDs. Only back up data and not the whole programs.
b: When your system is infected and you decide to just re-install, I recommend yanking the HD and putting it into a 2nd machine, saving your documents off of your drive and then formatting it. Make sure you don't run or copy any programs from the infected drive. If you are skilled enough, you could boot the PC using a Linux LiveCD, tar up all your documents, pictures and anything that isn't windows or program related and then move it off of the machine to another machine. You can scan the tar ball without anything being able to run from it with different programs before you ever open it.

Also, don't just re-install from windows and then format the drive because that will copy the files to the HD, which in turn will allow the virus or spyware to infect the files before you reboot and install the software. You want to use a disk floppy or linux disk to delete the partitions and maybe even overwrite all content and then install from a CD from scratch. You also want to wipe out any boot partitions or data partitions on that drive/in that computer.

Finally, when you re-install, make sure you install everything before you connect the computer to the network. Install Windows and then upgrade to SP2, make sure the firewall is on and you have an antivirus and spyware software installed before you connect that machine to any network or any external drive. Then install MS Office and any other MS software you run. Then connect to the MS Update website and update everything to the latest stuff, including virus and spyware definitions. Then you can move your old documents back and start using your PC.

[Shlomart Ben Yisrael]

...and it makes sense to image your drive 3-4 times a year minimally.

Acronis True Image or Norton Ghost.

[ElTaco]

Or if you aren't totally incompetent and are willing to learn a bit to save some $, try a Linux LiveCD and use its backup features onto an external drive.