Thought I would share my SIX days of VIRUS hell with you!
This is actually a lesson I have seriously be taught - THE HARD WAY.
On Friday of last week I received TWO viruses, didn't know they were until my virus checker caught one but not the other - even though they were both the same > "SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS - THE REAL STORY!" What happened after that I have no idea but I quarantined another FIVE - yep FIVE! The virus checker got those, but here was the catch. They replicated themselves like aliens! Two begot four and four begets eight and so on. Ther is NO way to remove them. PC-Cillin said there was but it didn't work.
Programmes were crashing all around me. IE Explorer, Outlook Express, Dial-up Networking and other start-up programmes. Because that is where the KAK worms had embedded themselves.
The result? I had to format "C" drive and when finished, do it again. Good advice I received from a friend. Other good advice came from one within PPRuNe and I eventually got all sorted TODAY - seven days later.
I backed up but it never quite works out the way you like to when you put them back, because not all the system files follow the progs, so that's another problem to watch out for.
Another piece of advice was to get rid of PC-Cillin, that had to all intents and purposes, served me well for a year or more but which let me down. I have now downloaded McAfee and it lists in IT's virus list all the ones that infected my machine, while PC-Cillin did not. That is just not good enough. And I will NOT let Norton near my machine since it is my opinion that their stuff creates more problems than it cures.
The moral to this sad tale is to be very aware that these sick people who contrive to make our computing lives miserable do just that. And oft times these monsters invade machines via e-mails - mine did and I now know where they came from. But he didn't know he had them, but did wonder why his computer was constantly crashing. So watch your mails, if it has NO subject it needs care, but we do not always have a subject do we! But if you don't know who sent it DO NOT OPEN IT!!!!
Well after 70 hours of hard work I am about to get p****d, I deserve it and I'm gonna have it.
Be wary folks, it's bad news.