Later, however, I tried it on two other occasions and both of them were flops:

One time I used it on a virus infected machine, and it couldn’t even help me to the point that I could get any tools to run… and I used the Boot CD, too! I’m pretty sure it was a nasty rootkit that had burrowed deep into the OS.

The other time I was getting some very random and spontaneous reboots. No warning, no clean shutdown. Just, Bam! Reboot. First I thought it was hardware, but I ruled that out. I ran Reimage from the boot CD and it didn’t help at all.

So, you’ve been warned. I’m doing a follow-up post this coming week. The original post is here:

http://aspencomputerservices.com/blog/general-technical-advice/reimage-is-good-but-it-still-needs-some-work/

10q.

To my amazement Reimage totally worked installing including old XP patches that would not install via usual Windows update and gave me a fast working system again.

However, I am getting the same virus warning as above on Maywarebytes (but not ESOT). I have booster also. From reading various searches this appears to be a false positive and am having Malwarebytes ignore.

28/05/2009 10:23:01 AM
mbam-log-2009-05-28 (10-23-01).txt

Scan type: Full Scan (C:\|)
Objects scanned: 209748
Time elapsed: 43 minute(s), 17 second(s)

Memory Processes Infected: 0
Memory Modules Infected: 0
Registry Keys Infected: 3
Registry Values Infected: 2
Registry Data Items Infected: 0
Folders Infected: 0
Files Infected: 2

Memory Processes Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Memory Modules Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Registry Keys Infected:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{61ddcb65-ffa8-42ee-9ab9-88ec8184120c} (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Interface\{a4ab5d2e-ceae-4dd2-b99f-c9508575adc7} (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{1be669b7-d464-438a-94a7-7fda6c47ba47} (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Registry Values Infected:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run\reimage pc booster (Trojan.FakeAlert) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\SharedDLLs\C:\WINNT\system32\skinboxer43.dll (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

Registry Data Items Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Folders Infected:
(No malicious items detected)

Files Infected:
C:\Program Files\Reimage\Reimage PC Booster\Postrebootexecuter.exe (Trojan.FakeAlert) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.
C:\WINNT\system32\skinboxer43.dll (Trojan.Agent) -> Quarantined and deleted successfully.

didn’t work once

first one was an ooooooold computer (upgraded from w98) and didn’t have a NIC – it connected to the internet directly to a cox modem through a USB connection – activeX in IE was inop (one of the problems i was being called in to fix) — i figured reimage “could” be the right tool for the job

nope – couldn’t access the internet and thus access the reimage website through a USB connxn

another XP box – this time in a beauty salon – it required from sat pm until some time sunday night

at least they give a discount for excessive delay!

can’t really see any improvement

i guess in their defense, it didn’t actually HURT anything either so… ??

and then today.. two identical IBM thinkpads – XP *whacked* in both – no internet access on either, ipconfig in a command prompt was just blank – wouldn’t recognize USB stick drive (was going to try WinsockXPfix) – just opening explorer would crash the system (desktop icons disappear – open task mgr, start “explorer.exe” to recover) – etc etc etc – like i said: “whacked”

(also.. a quick run of MBAM revealed no viruses)

again, i “want” to see reimage actually WORK and i thought these cases were good candidates for a demonstration

used a reimage boot cd to initiate a repair

nope – the reimage scan got stuck on the first step of five or six for… twenty minutes (too long) – so i got chat support to ask if there could be anything we could do but the guy i got was not very responsive – eventually he said he’d pass me along to someone more experienced

long story longer, the client didn’t have anything important on the HDs, so we restarted and pressed the ThinkVantage button during boot and restored to factory defaults

really… we would REALLY like to see this work! given it three tries now

I update and customize computers for my clients.

Most issues can be fixed with a proper cleaning and/or chkdsk /r or other such command prompts…