The return of OS (virus got my PC)

[Omaha Steve]

An incorrect setting let in a virus. I lost everything in my PC. All my photos, mail, bookmarks, etc. Some records were close to 10 years old. Even my back up file was corrupted. It had been in the system a couple weeks. It will be sometime Saturday before I get back here again. I just wanted my friends to know why I haven't been here for the last 3 days. The one post I made with our notebook (I hate using it) took awhile. I'm just not used to the finger for a mouse thing.

Anyway I'll soon be my old self. I sure missed this place.

Omaha Steve

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Oh Damn!!! That must have been heartbreaking......

Perhaps you can find someone who can pull stuff off the hard drive....like forensically..

Good luck. You will be missed.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

2. Oh, damn, I'm sorry.......

I hope you find a way to retrieve it all. It even killed your backups?

That's awful.

Now I'm gonna run a scan on this desktop.

Good luck, and hurry back....................

[notadmblnd]

3. plug your mouse into it.

I don't like the finger thing either. An extra mouse cost about 3 bucks. That's what I use on my laptop. Grab the one off your machine and plug it in. It'll make things easier for you.

[ananda]

4. I'm so sorry that happened.

Such a shame.

Good luck in figuring out something new.

[patrice]

5. I'd swear I caught something from some YouTube spoof video of some

standup comic doing a routine about arahsay alinpay. Hammered this computer, kept shutting it down and then on re-start windows didn't do it's "Windows was improperly shut down, so the system has to yada yada" dance. Cost me $300.00 diagnose and to clean it up.

[peacetalksforall]

6. I think someone is messing with DU. I get a lot of shut down notices and DU closed down.

Not the computer, now windows, - just DU. And when I'm trying to close down the programs to leave the computer - closing down is difficult - sometime it won't closed down, sometimes the shut down loops - really irritating and worrisome. For awhile it seemed to happen about 6pm.

[frylock]

7. which virus?

sorry to hear about all that, Steve.

[Omaha Steve]

9. .200 something

A setting in Norton allowed it in. Marta being an IT person corrected the problem yesterday. I got the first symptoms about 3 weeks ago.

[DCKit]

8. So sorry... been through it a couple of times myself, but my own fault.

I was torn and twisted for several years and began running a dual-boot system with Debian Linux. However, a month ago, my power supply died and, instead of spending $40 for a new PS for my old and entirely adequate PC, the S.O. bought me a new 64 bit Dell with a 19", widescreen monitor. Not that I'm complaining....

However, after attempting to install windows xp on an external drive (for the media capabilities), I found that windoze, without asking or informing, had reformatted every drive attached to the new PC and I, again, lost everything I thought was backed up - including the new PC's OS. Then again, a clean start isn't so terrible, just a bitch... from Hell. It took a week just to get back to DU and reconcile all the other passwords for the important sites.

However, now that I'm back up and running, I can't pimp Linux enough. It's free, it's faster and it's not bloated. When a bug is found in a Linux program, it's not patched with some lousy work-around, it's fixed with a clean installation of the re-compiled program - something Bill Gates never bothered to implement.

Sure, there's a learning curve and I still don't have complete control over my system, but it runs well and faster than it ever did since my first 386 running Windows NT.

Linux won't work for everyone, but you can install it on a windows system for dual boot (a bitch to uninstall) or run it from a CD just to try (the big Ubuntu book comes with a free CD), or you can download an older version more suited to your hardware.

www.ubuntu.com

[L0oniX]

10. I have not been infected for over 13 years and I use Kaspersky.

It's a free download 30 day full protection trial and then buy a key on Ebay for $10. You'll never have a problem again. Nothing beats Kaspersky. Back in the warez days it was the pirates choice and remains to be the best anti-virus, anti-phish, anti-root kit and anti key logger protection out there.