Need advice on securing two computers

Hello,

Chaslang helped me a few months ago when I was cleaning a system. You guys are great! I need advice on securing two computers. First my plan, then my questions:


I have two computers on a home network, both running XP Home, connected with a Linksys router (not wireless). Security has been lax on these systems, and may have been compromised. I began running the recommended series of security scans on one of them (from "READ & RUN ME FIRST"), and all seemed clean so far. I stopped when I got to the online scans, I'd changed my mind on how to handle this.

It's time for me to upgrade these systems anyway, so I'm going to start things fresh. I have a new hard drive that I'm going to reinstall windows on. I'll install a firewall, SP2 and critical updates, antivirus, the rest of the programs you recommend for handling malware infections.

Then I'm going to transfer all my files over to the definitely-clean system, and scan them thoroughly with all the programs to ensure they're all fine.

I completely wipe out & reformat the old drives. Then reinstall windows on one of them. Install firewall, antivirus, and the rest. Transfer any files back I need to, and voilà! -- two clean, fully protected systems. I will follow all steps and recommendations from "READ & RUN ME FIRST", and "How to Protect yourself from malware!".


Does this sound like a good plan -- any recommendations?

Would it be fine to run all scans from normal mode (rather than safe mode) in this case, since the system I will be scanning from will definitely be clear of problems?

What would be the best method for transfering the files over to the clean system to be scanned, without risking re-infection?

These are the three methods I thought of:

1. I have 10 CDRWs and a CD burner. But with 40GB+ that means a whole lot of burning, and plenty of running back and forth!

2. Connect one of the old hard drives to the clean system directly, by IDE ribbon. Boot from the clean drive, then scan the old one before opening/viewing any files on it. The easiest method, but I thought this might be risky. If there was a boot-sector virus or something similar, could it still activate?

3. I've found that when using an IM, like AIM, I can transfer large amounts of files between both computers very quickly. So quickly, in fact, I'm certain they don't even pass over the internet, the router transmits the files directly between both systems through the ethernet cables. I could transfer all files this way, then scan them thoroughly before running/opening any of them.


As always, I greatly appreciate any help you can give me!

-- Tech

 

Added note: Also, I'll be clearing/resetting the CMOS for both motherboards just in case, as per motherboard instructions.