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OK, So it finally happened to me. I thought my anitivirus anti adware and malware protection was doing its job, but obviously it wasn't. And of course I wasn't making complete backups of my files like I should have (but will in the future).
Short story: when I shut the computer down on Friday night everything was working as it normally did. Saturday, upon starting the computer a totally different screen presented itself. The screen was like one gets on a new computer just out of the box. Did I want to take a tour of Windows XP? Set up an internet connection? Gone were all my files and folders. Gone too, was everything connected to my email and favorites. Just a empty machine with the programs ready to serve. Including my up-to-date Norton 2010.
So, I thought I'll use the handy feature of XP called System Restore only to discover that each and every restore point selected was returned with "Unable to restore to that point, ..." So I tried advanced search or some such named "advanced user tool" that allowed me to look at the actual entries and found that although the restore points were listed and made boldface on the little calendar in fact the restore points were listed as "sr failed" in the log.
I'm sorting it all out and have had to start over with a system recovery going back to when I purchased the machine. All lists of email and contacts will have to be recreated. All photos on the machine of my WFO construction gone as well as many others. Fortunately I never delete photos from my camera and so they have not really gone from existance. Cards are so inexpensive I just get a new card when one fills. It takes alot of photos to fill a 4 gig SD card. Still all in all a real PIA. But it could of been worse, we do no banking or financial record keeping on any machine connected online. I shutter to think how I would feel had this happened and I had been doing my taxes online.
Best that I can determine it is some permutation of a piece of malware called "Vundo". Oh, after finding the empty entries I tried updating the Norton 2010 and it came in fine with the latest updates and a full system scan gave me the comforting yet wrong "No threats found", it appears Vundo is near on invisible to such protection. And from what I have discovered online I may still need to start over completely reformating the HD to rid my machine of this beast.
I'm bringing in contacts from an old machine and will start from there. And from now on watch the restore points to see if they are real and of course back up my files.
And later today will seek solace in a half rack of beer with a friend.
Bests,
Wiley
Short story: when I shut the computer down on Friday night everything was working as it normally did. Saturday, upon starting the computer a totally different screen presented itself. The screen was like one gets on a new computer just out of the box. Did I want to take a tour of Windows XP? Set up an internet connection? Gone were all my files and folders. Gone too, was everything connected to my email and favorites. Just a empty machine with the programs ready to serve. Including my up-to-date Norton 2010.
So, I thought I'll use the handy feature of XP called System Restore only to discover that each and every restore point selected was returned with "Unable to restore to that point, ..." So I tried advanced search or some such named "advanced user tool" that allowed me to look at the actual entries and found that although the restore points were listed and made boldface on the little calendar in fact the restore points were listed as "sr failed" in the log.
I'm sorting it all out and have had to start over with a system recovery going back to when I purchased the machine. All lists of email and contacts will have to be recreated. All photos on the machine of my WFO construction gone as well as many others. Fortunately I never delete photos from my camera and so they have not really gone from existance. Cards are so inexpensive I just get a new card when one fills. It takes alot of photos to fill a 4 gig SD card. Still all in all a real PIA. But it could of been worse, we do no banking or financial record keeping on any machine connected online. I shutter to think how I would feel had this happened and I had been doing my taxes online.
Best that I can determine it is some permutation of a piece of malware called "Vundo". Oh, after finding the empty entries I tried updating the Norton 2010 and it came in fine with the latest updates and a full system scan gave me the comforting yet wrong "No threats found", it appears Vundo is near on invisible to such protection. And from what I have discovered online I may still need to start over completely reformating the HD to rid my machine of this beast.
I'm bringing in contacts from an old machine and will start from there. And from now on watch the restore points to see if they are real and of course back up my files.
And later today will seek solace in a half rack of beer with a friend.
Bests,
Wiley
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