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1 Rookie
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101 Posts
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13750
November 5th, 2017 11:00
Turning off secure boot, will it really hurt me?
My daughter has dropped off her allegedly infected Dell 3455 for some TLC. I've been using Windows 10 for a while now, but this is my first disinfecting task. Normally i would simply boot off a known good USB drive (I have these for work), and scan away. But this unit won't let me select an alternative boot device.
According to my research, this is due to the secure boot feature of newer BIOS and Windows 10. If I attempt to select the legacy boot option, I am given a very threatening and gory warning about possibly rendering the existing Windows 10 installation un-bootable, etc. Since I don't have an image of this hard drive, I resisted the urge.
So, can anyone give me some practical experience / guidance here? Will changing to a legacy boot option and then back really nuke the installation?
Regards,
cg
sgr278
53 Posts
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November 5th, 2017 11:00
Turning off secure boot will not hurt your computer, turn it back on once windows has been disinfected of the virus and all will be fine.
cgilley
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101 Posts
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November 5th, 2017 12:00
Thank you, so nothing but a very scary message. Figures.
cgilley
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101 Posts
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November 5th, 2017 12:00
Well, booting and scanning from the USB now. We'll see what happens.
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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November 5th, 2017 17:00
If you need help disinfecting that PC, you can get free expert help at spywarehammer.com. Many of the experts over there are members of this forum and they know Dell PCs very well.
Be sure to read and follow their instructions (spywarehammer.com/.../) after registering, before you create your thread. And include PC model, version and which update of Win 10 is running, and what steps you've already taken to clean the infection, in your first post along with all the info requested in their instructions.
cgilley
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101 Posts
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November 6th, 2017 11:00
Appreciate the offer, I'll log that site away if I need it. Scanned three different ways, it comes back clean. Asked a few more questions, and I think they got stuck on one of those web pages warning you about how you are infected, call here, etc. You can't close it, and the only way to get rid of the browser is to terminate the thread.
Anyway, turned off the UEFI (or whatever), booted the USB, scanned, turned back on the UEFI, all is well. Scary message about nothing.
RoHe
10 Elder
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45.2K Posts
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November 6th, 2017 16:00
If you managed to get to one of those "suspicious" web pages, it might not hurt to let the spywarehammer experts have a look with their tools, just to rule out any drive-by downloads and/or things that are difficult to detect.
Mention that you were referred there from Dell's forum and they'll take good care of you. They've saved my bacon a couple of times. :emotion-5: