Computer viruses infect millions of computers every day. Viruses can destroy data, steal important information, and even make a computer completely unusable. When a computer is infected by a virus it is imperative that the virus be removed as quickly as possible.

If a computer is infected by a computer virus the computer needs to be scanned by virus scanning software. If you do not own virus-scanning software than you may buy some software at www.norton.com.

If you do not wish to buy the virus scanning software at this point, than you may use a free virus scan which is located at www.mcafee.com.

In order to use the freescan:

1. Go to www.mcafee.com.
2. Click on home and home office.
3. Under the heading of free tools (at the bottom of the page), click Scan Now.
4. The program will download an activex control (make sure that they are allowed); click Install when prompted to do so.
5. Make sure C: Drive is highlighted and click Scan.
6. If any files are found by Mcafee to have viruses, go to that location on your hard-drive, and delete those files.

If you cannot access the Internet as a result of the virus or the computer is unusable, than other measures may have to be taken. If the computer is unusable, and you have another hard-drive on hand, than you may hook up the damaged hard-drive as a slave drive. (Consult the user manual of your computer to see where your hard-drive is hooked up, and how your motherboard is setup).

You will have to unhook your hard-drive, put a different hard-drive in as the primary drive, and hook up the damaged drive as the slave drive (make sure the computer is shut down and unplugged when removing computer parts, also make sure you are grounded (static electricity destroys computer parts). Once this is done than you may boot your computer, and copy the necessary files over to the other hard drive. You may also run scans on your slave drive at this point, in order to remove the virus from the damaged hard drive.

Another way to remove a virus from your computer is to use the removal tools on www.symantec.com.

1. If another computer is available (if the virus infected computer is unusable), than go to www.symantec.com.
2. Click on the Security Response Tab.
3. You can look for the virus that is infected on your computer. Once you find out what virus is infected on your computer (look for the behaviour that the virus is exhibiting on your computer), you can click on the Downloads Tab.
4. Click on Virus Removal Tools.
5. Click on the virus that is infected on your computer.
6. Follow the instructions on the virus removal page in order to remove the virus from the infected computer.

Benjamin Nicholson is a CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert). He has been working in the IT industry for the past 20 years, and most recently has been studying computer viruses and the impact of computer viruses and spyware on society.