I (barely) Survived A Virus because of dumb luck but I need a hand to get the system back to normal.

[Demhi00666]

Could really use some advice on this one from you very nice people.
I was surfing the web and I had a window open. It was suspicious so I
clicked on the [X] to close the thing. When I did all heck broke
lose. My BF said it was a "pornado" - all the windows opening up like
that. This made we wonder where he'd been on the net with my
computer.
Anyway I kept getting a msg saying that my drive was failing and the
web site could help me. I'd been having hardware issues and this just
confused the situation more. I finally had to turn the thing off and
when I rebooted there was nothing on my desktop. I couldn't find any
programs anywhere.
I was able to go to command prompt and run a program and I ran
Maleware Byte to fix the problem if it was a virus.
No change on my system.

I had been in the process of sorting my family photos to back them up
(seriously) and they were all lost. To help troubleshoot the drive I
placed it into another computer. There were NO FILES to be seen on
the drive. ALL my photos (the most important things I had), movies ,
books all gone. Right before I gave up though I noticed that the free
space on the drive was not was it should be if the drive had been
formatted.

Again on a hunch I ran a program that showed me hidden files and found
ALL OF MY FILES. It took a while to make them UN-Hidden(?) but there
were there and intact and worked.

I was able to do the same to the files on my computers PRIMARY HD (the
one that had the OS - opps, the OS is WIN XP BTW - sorry.)

I can run programs on the computer now but I have to go to
START-->PROGRAMS b/c the desktop is still empty and I cannot copy
anything to it. I cannot SEND a EXE to the desktop to make a
Shortcut either.

I've been putting off taking this problem on for a while because I was
just so happy to have my photos back. But I had to get on it today to
send an email. When I went to send an attachment, the email program
showed the DESKTOP and it was FULLY POPULATED like it should have
been....but only in the emails program to select the attached file.

I can't take it any more. Can anyone help me? I know I'll have to
either install a new OS or reinstall the current OS in the near
future, but is there some way I can fix this problem now??
I don't know what attacked my computer. I don't know if it was
because of somewhere I'd gone on the net or if it was due to something
the ex-BF did. I think it was mostly luck that let me get as far as I
did recovering the files, but I'm at a loss of what to do now.
I'm running AVG on the system as I type this on my laptop to make sure
there is no trace of virus (if that is even what it was) left.
The drive that the computer reported as Failing is working fine and
has been since I Un-hid the files.
My photos have been backed up to 2 HD's to protect them in the future.

If you have any suggestions I'd really appreciate them about now.
I know some people don't like to help but I'll take advice on how to
troubleshoot and solve this myself. I'm pretty desperate.



Thanks
Demhi

 

[John Doe]

Could really use some advice on this one from you very nice
people. I was surfing the web and I had a window open. It was
suspicious so I clicked on the [X] to close the thing. When I
did all heck broke lose. My BF said it was a "pornado" - all
the windows opening up like that. This made we wonder where
he'd been on the net with my computer.
Hmm.

Anyway I kept getting a msg saying that my drive was failing and
the web site could help me. I'd been having hardware issues and
this just confused the situation more. I finally had to turn
the thing off and when I rebooted there was nothing on my
desktop. I couldn't find any programs anywhere. I was able to
go to command prompt and run a program and I ran Maleware Byte
to fix the problem if it was a virus. No change on my system.

I had been in the process of sorting my family photos to back
them up (seriously) and they were all lost. To help
troubleshoot the drive I placed it into another computer. There
were NO FILES to be seen on the drive. ALL my photos (the most
important things I had), movies , books all gone. Right before
I gave up though I noticed that the free space on the drive was
not was it should be if the drive had been formatted.

Again on a hunch I ran a program that showed me hidden files and
found ALL OF MY FILES. It took a while to make them
UN-Hidden(?) but there were there and intact and worked.

I was able to do the same to the files on my computers PRIMARY
HD (the one that had the OS - opps, the OS is WIN XP BTW -
sorry.)

I can run programs on the computer now but I have to go to
START-->PROGRAMS b/c the desktop is still empty and I cannot
copy anything to it. I cannot SEND a EXE to the desktop to
make a Shortcut either.

I've been putting off taking this problem on for a while because
I was just so happy to have my photos back. But I had to get on
it today to send an email. When I went to send an attachment,
the email program showed the DESKTOP and it was FULLY POPULATED
like it should have been....but only in the emails program to
select the attached file.

I can't take it any more. Can anyone help me? I know I'll have
to either install a new OS or reinstall the current OS in the
near future, but is there some way I can fix this problem now??
I don't know what attacked my computer. I don't know if it was
because of somewhere I'd gone on the net or if it was due to
something the ex-BF did. I think it was mostly luck that let me
get as far as I did recovering the files, but I'm at a loss of
what to do now. I'm running AVG on the system as I type this on
my laptop to make sure there is no trace of virus (if that is
even what it was) left. The drive that the computer reported as
Failing is working fine and has been since I Un-hid the files.
My photos have been backed up to 2 HD's to protect them in the
future.

If you have any suggestions I'd really appreciate them about
now. I know some people don't like to help but I'll take advice
on how to troubleshoot and solve this myself. I'm pretty
desperate.

Scroll up and you will see a thread "The ultimate backup routine"
started two days ago on Monday about the absolute necessity of
backing up your system. I mentioned that if you hang around this
group for a while, you will hear people coming and crying about
losing their data because they do not have backups.

If you really want help... Keep your boyfriend (assuming you are
as you say) or make a new techie friend. After making backups,
have your old boyfriend or your new techie friend follow the
advice given in that thread as he helps you reinstall Windows.
Keep that thread in mind. Make backups of your installation
progress and then ask your friend to help you repeat the procedure
periodically, once every week/month or so.

Good luck.

By the way, not that it matters, but I love UseNet mysteries...
Why did you post no-archive? Does it have anything to do with
this being your first post to UseNet under your current ID?
That is interesting, considering you're using Forte Agent.
--

 

[Paul]

Could really use some advice on this one from you very nice people.
I was surfing the web and I had a window open. It was suspicious so I
clicked on the [X] to close the thing. When I did all heck broke
lose. My BF said it was a "pornado" - all the windows opening up like
that. This made we wonder where he'd been on the net with my
computer.
Anyway I kept getting a msg saying that my drive was failing and the
web site could help me. I'd been having hardware issues and this just
confused the situation more. I finally had to turn the thing off and
when I rebooted there was nothing on my desktop. I couldn't find any
programs anywhere.
I was able to go to command prompt and run a program and I ran
Maleware Byte to fix the problem if it was a virus.
No change on my system.

I had been in the process of sorting my family photos to back them up
(seriously) and they were all lost. To help troubleshoot the drive I
placed it into another computer. There were NO FILES to be seen on
the drive. ALL my photos (the most important things I had), movies ,
books all gone. Right before I gave up though I noticed that the free
space on the drive was not was it should be if the drive had been
formatted.

Again on a hunch I ran a program that showed me hidden files and found
ALL OF MY FILES. It took a while to make them UN-Hidden(?) but there
were there and intact and worked.

I was able to do the same to the files on my computers PRIMARY HD (the
one that had the OS - opps, the OS is WIN XP BTW - sorry.)

I can run programs on the computer now but I have to go to
START-->PROGRAMS b/c the desktop is still empty and I cannot copy
anything to it. I cannot SEND a EXE to the desktop to make a
Shortcut either.

I've been putting off taking this problem on for a while because I was
just so happy to have my photos back. But I had to get on it today to
send an email. When I went to send an attachment, the email program
showed the DESKTOP and it was FULLY POPULATED like it should have
been....but only in the emails program to select the attached file.

I can't take it any more. Can anyone help me? I know I'll have to
either install a new OS or reinstall the current OS in the near
future, but is there some way I can fix this problem now??
I don't know what attacked my computer. I don't know if it was
because of somewhere I'd gone on the net or if it was due to something
the ex-BF did. I think it was mostly luck that let me get as far as I
did recovering the files, but I'm at a loss of what to do now.
I'm running AVG on the system as I type this on my laptop to make sure
there is no trace of virus (if that is even what it was) left.
The drive that the computer reported as Failing is working fine and
has been since I Un-hid the files.
My photos have been backed up to 2 HD's to protect them in the future.

If you have any suggestions I'd really appreciate them about now.
I know some people don't like to help but I'll take advice on how to
troubleshoot and solve this myself. I'm pretty desperate.



Thanks
Demhi

A program called "unhide.exe" was specifically created for this situation.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/topic391939.html

Step 17 here has the download.

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/virus-removal/remove-smart-defragmenter

( http://download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/unhide.exe )

I don't know any more about it than that, that a program exists to
try to undo this kind of foulup.

*******

To prevent making things worse, you can make a backup first, before
running "unhide". Then, if you didn't like the results for some
reason, you could restore from the backup.

Good luck,
Paul

 

[Flasherly]

Could really use some advice on this one from you very nice people.
I was surfing the web and I had a window open. It was suspicious so I
clicked on the [X] to close the thing. When I did all heck broke
lose. My BF said it was a "pornado" - all the windows opening up like
that. This made we wonder where he'd been on the net with my
computer.

Yep. I've restored them before for people in a similar situation,
when they tell me how upsetting it is to find another inadvertently
compromised their system. Stealing information comes in various forms
and is always a popular pastime for idling away life on the internet.
Although I have nothing much to offer as to why you have nothing on
your desktop, when I am called upon for such things, I don't really
think to repeat exactly what I told them when they bought the
computer: There's a hidden place on the HD where I put everything to
make this computer work as it did when you first turned it on.
Exactly. Perfectly. Once I go to that place, you'll loose everything
you've done since. Yes or no won't cost you anything . . . I don't do
maybe, although for $75-$125 an hour I do know others who will.

 

[Davej]

[...]
If you have any suggestions I'd really appreciate them about now.
I know some people don't like to help but I'll take advice on how to
troubleshoot and solve this myself.  I'm pretty desperate.

You mention having a second HD so you should probably find and move
all of your important files onto that other HD if you haven't already.

Then on the original HD you probably need to reinstall XP or allow it
to attempt a repair.

If this is a computer with a read-only CD/DVD or spare bay I would
suggest buying and installing a DVD burner. A DVD burner would allow
you to periodically save any important photos or files. See...

http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=5&name=CD-DVD-Burners