http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=193239279

Good on you! You are correct, it takes longer than 2.5 hours especially when you consider after the O.S. install, mobo drivers & video card drivers, the time it takes to reinstall client’s software e.g. Internet Security, Office, printer drivers, configure their email a/c plus scan the backup of client’s data before restoring it to the computer.

Many clients I see do not have their recovery disc or an XP/Vista disc and mobo drivers disc.

I use format/reinstall option as the last resort & I rarely have had to resort to it. I consider it a cop-out to just format/reinstall on every infected computer.

I work on multiple computers when in my workshop but some clients prefer to have the work done at their premises. If it looks like it might be a long job disinfecting, I advise the client that it will be cheaper if I take it to my workshop – all clients have agreed to that.

Jeff

Don’t be so arrogant here. Not everybody wants their PC reformatted. It takes much much longer to reformat a computer and restore the data and install the applications. If the PC can be cleaned, then why not, it’s not very hard to do.

If you want to install the OS, the customer needs to have the repair disk, which is not always the case. How about reinstalling all the drivers? How about removing all the crap programs that come on a PC after reinstalling it? Those take time to remove. After all is said and done, if you can clean a PC and get it running great again, go for it.

So you spend 2 hours trying to rid the machine of viruses only to find out it has more than one and it still runs like crap. Now you have decided to wipe the drive. Now you are going to spend a few more hours at it when you should have just wiped it to begin with. I dont waste my time.

A good experienced technican can usually backup, wipe, and re-load in about 2.5 hours. This includes running hard drive diagnostics which you should also be doing. You also better be maintaining a driver database on your external USB drive.

Also, a good experienced tech does not just work on customer machines, when times are slow. You should be refurbishing computers for re-sale… so you should be working for yourself. I always purchase or acquire computer lots from recyclers or from my own recycle pickups. I always have tons of machines that need work and I work on several machines at a time, not just one. So you want to get good at? Get off your butt.