Just recovered from a nasty virus attack on ma pc

[Subzero]

Bloody hell!!! Caught a mega nasty virus (a trojan) that infected almost ALL my exe files and DLL files causing me to format BOTH hard drives, lost all my previous podcast stuff, lost ALL my mp3's (including about 50gb of C64 remixes) - basically lost EVERYTHING!!!!

Took a day to get back to normal....


Virus creators....WE HATE YOU!

[Commie_User]

Poor sod. We all know how that goes, even those of us who thought our antivirus programs were riding the surf.

50Gb of pure Commodore goodness gone? Condolences mate, though I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that you should have backed up your goodies as you went along.

Those who bitch about prison sentences being too heavy for computer hackers and virus writers have probably never been their victims, not on their own machines anyway I bet. It really can tear you down to have months (or years) of hard work ruined.

[trace]

I have had 2 of those attacks and YET I don't have any antivirus program installed So my pc is a ticking bomb every single mouseclick on the internet...

[Steve B]

i remember the first time i was 'got' by a virus.
me and a mate were going to convert JSW to the amiga (him the code, me the gfx)
i had sat and drawn all the graphics (all of them) at home and taken them around to his house to put them in the code he had done so far.
puts the disk in, wont read the file.
opens the file in a hex editor and finds the word 'lamer' all the way through the file
total loss
no bloody back up.
i wanted to rip the throat out of the guy who wrote it.
i always backed up after that.

[Vosla]

I remember killling Amiga nastier boot virii with the famous old SCA boot virus who was easier to remove...
Had some infections but never widespread, just a file or two. Since the day I was on internet, I installed a wadload of anti virus scanners and always had a copy of important stuff on another PC or burned on CDs.

Maybe it helped a lot that computers were always my hobby, so I had more chances to look for possible infection threats.
Ah, yes - being a bit paranoid helped a lot, too!

[Analog-X64]

A virus or two has penetrated the defenses here before. But I always manage to recover my data, but the O/S is always blown away and restart from scratch.

[Infamous]

Ive thankfully recovered from the one that hit me, some dirty little worm thingie that was eating up all the dll's and making copies of itself (it was also clever enough to turn off my system restore so i only had one restore point and guess where that was.. yeap right where i caught the fecker in the 1st place) luckily my friend is a bit clever with stuff like that and managed to save my computer.. more lucky really that i noticed my comp acting like a total spaz and reacted quickly.

Virus makers really do need to get a proper hobby

[Subzero]

System Restore is no good anyways these days, virus' sit in there too waiting to get life again...

[Vosla]

System Restore is no good anyways these days, virus' sit in there too waiting to get life again...

Automatic system restore is good for cleaning up the mess you did by yourself or when installers go all awry. Virii weren't on the list as a feature when System Restore was created.

[Analog-X64]

Automatic system restore is good for cleaning up the mess you did by yourself or when installers go all awry. Virii weren't on the list as a feature when System Restore was created.

Many virus authors intentionally write viruses with the same extensions as Windows files that are monitored by System Restore. That being the case, it is common for people to have a virus, then run virus scans to remove the virus. But, once System Restore is used to recover their computer to an earlier date, it is very possible to introduce that same virus back in to the system.

When a virus is found on a system, System Restore should be completely disabled, all Restore Points should be deleted. Then scan the system with anti-virus software. After all parasites have been removed, re-enable System Restored and create a new Restore Point.

[Vosla]

Many virus authors intentionally write viruses with the same extensions as Windows files that are monitored by System Restore. That being the case, it is common for people to have a virus, then run virus scans to remove the virus. But, once System Restore is used to recover their computer to an earlier date, it is very possible to introduce that same virus back in to the system.

When a virus is found on a system, System Restore should be completely disabled, all Restore Points should be deleted. Then scan the system with anti-virus software. After all parasites have been removed, re-enable System Restored and create a new Restore Point.

This is the proper procedure. Though I think most virus programmer hadn't intentionally planned their files being included in the System restore. That's just a neat side effect for them. As you cannot really save & store away those system snapshots, they are pretty useless for real backup. It's just a little nice feature in cause of small errors.
System restore is responsible for my Windows ME working from 2001 on without a fresh install. Well, as my main machine is now a Win XP Pro one, I guess the Windows ME system will work until the hard drive or mainboard dies.

[Analog-X64]

Well, as my main machine is now a Win XP Pro one, I guess the Windows ME system will work until the hard drive or mainboard dies.

hehehehe... Windows ME, one of those things that Microsoft quietly swept under the carpet never to talk of again.

You should make a ghost image of it as well for safekeeping.

[Vosla]

Well, as my main machine is now a Win XP Pro one, I guess the Windows ME system will work until the hard drive or mainboard dies.

hehehehe... Windows ME, one of those things that Microsoft quietly swept under the carpet never to talk of again.

You should make a ghost image of it as well for safekeeping.

Win ME is so much loathed for being the bastard operating system it was. It was bascially Win 98 SE with a good dose of Windows 2K goodness though you had to go through a lot of hurt when using old DOS proggies on the same machine. The version of FAT32 used by Win ME is slightly different from the Win 98 SE version so some DOS FAT32 helpers didn't worked 100%. And the driver system which was partially like that of Win 2K often caused grief by non-working soundcards for DOS-games. Emulators weren't that good at the time. Judging from the patches Win Me received from MS it was the most perfect system ever in MS-history - there were about 10 single patches in all which were directly connected to Win ME and not auxiliary problems like IE, DirectX, .NET. After all, Win ME was a stillborn baby and I feel a bit like Dr. Frankenstein for being one of the last ten users to utilize Win ME for actual work. I have squirelled away a complete backup of the system, so it will never actually die, just perhaps fail and then to get raised again by my necromantic IT powers.

[Condor]

Nest time, after instalation of windows and stup of all programs & every little thing, make image of partition using Norton Ghost or Acronis. Hirens Boot CD can be very usefull.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

Now is Hirens legal or not, I'm not into that, it IS usefull.

[Vosla]

Nest time, after instalation of windows and stup of all programs & every little thing, make image of partition using Norton Ghost or Acronis. Hirens Boot CD can be very usefull.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

Now is Hirens legal or not, I'm not into that, it IS usefull.

Hirens contains abandonware and trial versions along with tons of freeware. So - strictly said - this compilation of tools is not legal.
For private use it's pretty useful. But don't even think about using it in a productive enviroment.