urgent help needed!!!

  • Thread starter Thread starter chris thomas
  • Start date Start date
C

chris thomas

I just came onto my pc and the whole of my documents has
been wiped clean, along with ll the start menu etc.
I had many essays etc in my documents that have to be
given in.
there's no trace of them at all. I can't even get into
system tools, because it says it's empty!!
what is going on with my computer??

The only things I have done today is I unistallkazaa and
its components, uninstalled a WINDVD demo, and installed
my creative soundblaster live CD again.
Before that everything was fine.
in fact, earlier today I saved an essay in My documents
that I am giving in tomorrow and was about to go and
finish.

PLEASE HELP!
chris thomas
 
You may have a virus and in which case be in serious
trouble. Check that first. Then reboot and press f8 for
startup options and pick last known good configuration,
that may help.
If you do get them back now would be a good time to
backup your files.
 
chris said:
I just came onto my pc and the whole of my documents has
been wiped clean, along with ll the start menu etc.
I had many essays etc in my documents that have to be
given in.
there's no trace of them at all. I can't even get into
system tools, because it says it's empty!!
what is going on with my computer??

The only things I have done today is I unistallkazaa and
its components, uninstalled a WINDVD demo, and installed
my creative soundblaster live CD again.
Before that everything was fine.
in fact, earlier today I saved an essay in My documents
that I am giving in tomorrow and was about to go and
finish.

PLEASE HELP!
chris thomas
Click to expand...

IMNSHO, anyone who doesn't back up their files on a regular basis deserves
everything that's coming to them. If the documents were that important,
then you should have taken a back-up. You didn't, so it's tough sh*t.
 
Yes, for the multitude of events that can cause loss of data ...hardware
failure (quite common), viruses, human error, bugs, etc...important things
need to be backed up so hopefully at least one of the backups (even paper
hard copy if nothing else) will work.
 
yeah cheers for all your help---

i did system restore and rolled back to earlier today,
and then even 2 days ago, and things seemed better, ie
the start menu programs returned, but the my documents
ones did not; why might this be?

I think a virus could be the most obvious culprit-- my
McAfee virus protecter stopped working yesterday; asking
me to verify it, but it would not let me do this so i
suppose i have mcafee to blame, and myself for not
backing up.

thanks
 
I think the point of him uninstalling kaazaa was missed.
this P2P software allows virus and trojans to infect your
system, it appears that someone got access and decided to
play a little joke on you.

System Restore monitors only a core set of specified
system and application file types (e.g. .exe, .dll etc),
archiving the states of these files before system changes
are made. System Restore does not monitor any
user/personal data files. To view the included files
specified in System Restore, see Monitored File Extensions
in the System Restore section of the Platform SDK.
Modifications to this list from sources other than
Microsoft are not supported.

You really need to get a better backup piece of software.
 
chris said:
yeah cheers for all your help---

i did system restore and rolled back to earlier today,
and then even 2 days ago, and things seemed better, ie
the start menu programs returned, but the my documents
ones did not; why might this be?

I think a virus could be the most obvious culprit-- my
McAfee virus protecter stopped working yesterday; asking
me to verify it, but it would not let me do this so i
suppose i have mcafee to blame, and myself for not
backing up.
Click to expand...

The virus disabled McAfee.
 
chris said:
is there one that can actually do that, disable Mcaffee??
Click to expand...

There are many viruses that will immediately break av software. This
could happen if you had an older antivirus version, weren't updating
its definitions or didn't renew your subscription. The usual way to
deal with this is to:

1) Take the infected machine off the Internet and any lan immediately.
2) From a different, clean machine download Stinger (http:/
vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/) and run it in Safe Mode. Stinger is a limited
virus checker, but its advantage is that it is standalone and doesn't
need to be installed.
3) Hope that Stinger cleans up the machine enough to be able to
reinstall your av or install a new, current one. Update its definitions
and do a full scan.
4) Continue the cleaning process by removing any spyware with Spybot
Search & Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org) and Ad-aware
(http://www.lavasoftusa.com). Be sure to update these programs before
running them. These programs are free, so run them both since they
complement each other. You may also want to run the latest CWShredder
from http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html. Always read the
instructions before running a spyware removal tool. It is best to run
antivirus and spyware removal tools in Safe Mode.
5) After you've installed your full-featured av, updated its
definitions and run a full system scan.
6) Make sure you are running a firewall.

Malke
 
In message <[email protected]>, chris thomas
Is your drive FAT or NTFS?
There are file recovery programs available that will restore deleted
files - in some cases, even if they have been overwritten.

For FAT, do a Google search for PC File recovery (freeware)
For NTFS, look for a prog called Active@ Undelete. If I remember, it
came from Lsoft.net or something similar. They have a demo version which
works OK. The only problem I had using this was trying to follow the
help files. It looked as if they had been written in another language
and not translated very well. Remember the old flat packed furniture
instructions?

Delete xxx to reply.

Good luck.
 
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