My m11x caught a cold T_T

Hey guys, so my computer was deemed a security threat and was consequently IP blocked from my university's network. Apparently my laptop was infected by the Gozi virus. From what I hear, this is some pretty nasty malware so I decided that formatting the hard drive would be the best solution. And here is where I am stuck. Can you guys help me out a little? ;D

I basically have three dilemmas.

The first is how to do the formatting. I have two available options: the Windows 7 restore disk that came with the laptop and the Dell recovery disk that I made when I received the laptop. Which one does a better job? Will these recovery methods actually completely wipe the hard drive therefore ridding me of the virus?

The second question I have is about whether I should back up my files or not. My laptop contains some pretty important documents and programs, but I don't know if copying these files will also transfer the virus.

My last question is about my firewall/antivirus. Seeing that McAffe did absolutely nothing to stop the virus, I feel as if I would switch to a different brand. I hear a lot of great things about AVG Free or Avast Free, but are they actually better than McAfee?

Thanks in advanced guys!

 

In response to the question of which antivirus software to use, rather than rely on people's opinions, try this site's reviews of many AV software/suites: AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software - Main-Tests. They seem to do very comprehensive testing, so I trust their results, and their papers are very readable.

 

Wow. Very detailed and comprehensive tests indeeds. Thanks corwinicre. It looks like McAfee actually doesn't do so bad compared to other brands after all.

 

I've had a terrible time with McAfee. It missed something like ~30 viruses on one of my desktops, and Avira found them and removed them easily.

Some good options for free antivirus software are Avira, Microsoft Security Essentials, and Avast. Malwarebytes is also good to have.

 

I agree. I've had many many viruses that have even slipped past McAfee's full system scan, but were caught by Malwarebytes' quick scan. Even though the test results show that McAfee has great performance, I think I may actually switch to Avast. Any good firewalls out there?

 

Pop malware bytes on a usb drive and install it from there. It should clean your system nicely.

 

This is a great idea. Just get Malwarebytes on a flash drive, boot into safe mode with networking, install Malwarebytes, update it, and run a full scan.