Weekend Work - Sunday, July 13

I got to work early and finished up the PC with over 1000 malware items on it and then turned my attention to finishing up the other two desktops on the bench. One of them was from a former boss, the other was infected with some type of virus that made it reboot as soon as the desktop appeared.

The desktop from my former boss was somewhat limited with only 256mb of RAM. I called him and let him know it was done after I had finished removing the malware and told him it could use a bump in RAM and recommended adding a 512mb stick to it. He agreed and said he would be by late to pick it up.

I pulled it apart, assured the inside was clean and added the RAM and then put it under a quick stress test to make sure the RAM was going to work with the PC. It passed with flying colors.

I turned my attention to the PC that would reboot on startup and found it would not start in safe mode, but would work if started as the administrator. That let me know it was a profile-related issue, most likely a piece of malware was running on startup with the user profile.

I ran a few tools on it and found the AV client was not updating. I updated it and scanned it, only to find the moment it started cleaning the malware from the machine, it would reboot once again.

I decided to take a quick break and go grab some lunch. Since I was by myself this weekend, I placed a note on the door and ran up the street to Golden Chick to get some food. I arrived and got in line, opting for the walk-in rather than the drive thru, thinking it would be quicker.

Was I wrong.

After about 20 minutes I had my food and headed back to the office to eat and finish up the day.

Back to the rebooting PC.

This one was gonna be tough, so I got tough with it and booted up on my custom-created BartPE disk and scanned it with it, finding it was infected with some nasty stuff. I cleaned it up and then booted back into the profile and it didn't automatically reboot.

I updated the AV client and all Windows updates and then scanned again with the newest definitions. It found a few dozen more infections and removed them. I contacted the owner and he said he would come get it later today.

My former boss dropped by and picked up his desktop and laptop. He left and was right back in a few minutes with his desktop. Or so I thought. This was his daughters desktop and he wanted me to clean it up and add memory if needed.

I put it on the bench and would start on it later.

My recently-unemployed friend, Chris, stopped by for a bit. He and I chatted while I finished up the work I had slated for the day. About 15 minutes into his visit my buddy Robert called. I talked to him a bit. He wants me to 'swing by' his house when I get an opportunity. He lives in Henrietta, so swinging by isn't as easy as if he lived down the street. I told him I would get with him and come by one weekend in the near future.

About 2:30 a somewhat frantic customer dropped by with his company laptop. It had become infected and he was facing some severe penalty if his boss found out. It seems his nephew was using it and got it in this shape.

Ever confident, I told him I could fix it. His only issue, he lived in Weatherford and would not be back in Graham until tomorrow. Of course, since I am only here on weekends, that was somewhat of a dilemma.

I told him I drive right through Weatherford on my way home each weekend, and he provided me with his address. As luck would have it, his house was within two blocks of my normal route. I offered to fix his PC and get it back to him today when I went back through Weatherford. He gladly left it and gave me his cell and home address.

Up to the challenge that I can fix anything, I tackled it head on and found it had several hundred infecting items. I systematically removed them and by 4:00 pm, I was getting close to wrapping it up. I called him and told him I needed a bit more time, but would be in Weatherford by 7:00, 7:30 at the latest. He asked how much the bill would be, to which I told him and he said he would got to the ATM and get the cash.

I finished it up and waited on two more customers to come pick up their PCs and then left shortly after 5:00 pm and headed to the house here to shut down everything and lock it all up.

Knowing I wouldn't get home until late, I stopped by the Dairy Queen in town and grabbed a burger on my way out.

I arrived in Weatherford just about 7:30 pm and found his place. He paid me in cash, I left him a receipt and headed home, arriving at the house about 8:30 pm.