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I use a Windows 8.1 laptop and recently it got infected, maybe because of a pandrive I plugged to it. A strange homepage appeared on chrome and a program that I never installed appeared on desktop. I decided to restore laptop to factory settings, which was told to me to be the same as to formar it. The problem is, I need to do it as soon as possible, I can only wait one day. So I can't wait the manufacturer send me installation cd or pendrive. I have an account on DreamSpark, so I can download Windows for free. I could save it on my pendrive or burn a dvd. My question is: is it safe to do that on an infected laptop? Will some virus infect it during or after OS installation from pendrive or dvd? I am not worried about the safety of my DreamSpark account, beacause I can always recover it on directly from IT on my university.I want to install Windows 8, but I can choose other versions.
Thanks in advance.
Renato
Posted 2015-06-09T03:57:23.820
Reputation: 21
There's generally a recovery partition that should work. If you do need to burn a DVD, you could do it from a linux liveusb you prepared on another system.
That said, browser hijacks are relatively minor. A good AV and/or antimalware should clear it out. – Journeyman Geek – 2015-06-09T06:43:29.330