Advice for Cleaning Computer Post-Discord Virus
About six months ago, I unfortunately fell for a scam/hack on Discord, where a hacker gets you to open an executable under the guise of it being a game they're developing, the executable steals your account's login info, and they lock you out and then pose as you, messaging your friends to try to do the same. Rinse and repeat. I'm still pretty embarrassed about it haha, but in my defense, I'm active in a number of game dev communities and genuinely thought my friend had developed a game.
Anyways, when I realized what had happened shortly after being locked out of my account, being kinda paranoid, I just shut down my entire laptop and disconnected it from my internet. In the meantime, I was able to recover my account after about a month, but I haven't touched or turned on the laptop since (I luckily have a spare Mac that I've since used).
After putting it off for a while, I think it's about time I finally address properly cleaning the laptop. I'm a bit paranoid about not exactly knowing if the hacker did anything else via the virus besides steal my account info. Of course I changed my passwords on all my other accounts (he actually tried going after my email account associated with Discord too), but I've worried that maybe he could have installed a keylogger or some sort monitoring software on the computer too?
Luckily, I had most of the computer's important files backed up, save like two really important folders that I really don't want to have to lose if I fully wipe the computer to be safe. Would it be safe or advisable to just quickly open the computer up, grab the files and transfer them to a flashdrive, and then wipe it? Is there any chance the virus could be attached to those files in some way? Sorry, I honestly know nothing about cybersecurity (if that wasn't already obvious haha).
I'd appreciate any advice on the best way to wipe the laptop too, or my overall approach. It's a Windows 11 laptop. Thanks for reading.