B@#%$*D VIRUS MAKING GEEKS!!

my home PC has had a virus rip through it and ia have lost every thing..EVERYTHING from the past 4 years....all our photos...all our documents...all my contacs...EVERYTHING HAS GONE!!
Hubby thinks they are in there somewhere so i have switched it off and left a note saying 'DO NOT TURN ON' just so the kids leave it alone....does anyone on here know if hubby might be right...are they hidding or are they lost forever...im gutted...well that really does not explain how i feel i want to get the little shits that do this for FUN and strip their skin off and dip the the little shits in salt...then i want to kick the living crap out of them...and i am not a violent person...just very upset to ahve lost all my stuff...pics of my lovely animals, some no longer with me...i know i should have got a back up of them all but until things like this happen you just do not think of it....so lesson for you all..BACK UP YOUR STUFF!!
Rant over...off to take it out on the house work...[!]

Sorry to hear Westermans, I sympathise with you. When you lose stuff like that it gives you a horrible feeling. Are you sure it was a virus and not just a computer melt down! Try calling some of the computer geek people-I use Need-a-Nerd, who might be able to find your lost stuff ??

I've got an external hard drive-reminder to self, run another back up!

No use plotting revenge on some nameless russian script kiddie with too much time on their hands and decided to write some malicious software.

I know most of this is you are upset with yourself for not having an anti-virus protection program able to smite the offending program, and for not keeping copies of the files you doom most precious.

Hubby might be right, but you'll need to take the hard drive to someone who knows a lot about computers, not just a little. It all depends on what the virus did, whether it hid things, deleted things, or steamrolled things. Hid and deteted, with the right knowledge, can be un-hid and un-deleted. Steamrolled = gone.

Good Luck

Good advice to do regular back-ups but also run effective antivirus and update it regularly. $60/year for ESET NOD32 is cheap insurance IMO :cool:

Having said that one of my external HDs (500GB) is making strange noises recently which is concerning

It must be the season.....My free Avast saved my stuff but took dummy me ages to fix it all...I had just back-upped the day before so wasn't too concerned..( after someone else on here lost their stuff)

Westermans;377218 wrote: my home PC has had a virus rip through it and ia have lost every thing..EVERYTHING from the past 4 years....all our photos...all our documents...all my contacs...EVERYTHING HAS GONE!!
Hubby thinks they are in there somewhere so i have switched it off and left a note saying 'DO NOT TURN ON' just so the kids leave it alone....does anyone on here know if hubby might be right...

Your OH is right. Your files have not been deleted. The files are still in the same place and have been changed to hidden and read only.

If you still have internet access go to

download.bleepingcomputer.com/grinler/unhide.exe

and run the program.

Organix;377223 wrote: Good advice to do regular back-ups but also run effective antivirus and update it regularly. $60/year for ESET NOD32 is cheap insurance IMO :cool:

I have seen this virus and others like it (known as fake-antivirus trojans) get through every antivirus around including NOD32.

The only prevention is safe internet surfing. If you get a pop-up on your screen that says you have x number of virus and to pay x number of dollars to remove DO NOT do anything but shut the PC down immediately. Hold the power button in 10-15 secs until the machine shuts down or pull the power plug.

Restart the computer in safe mode with networking (F8 key while booting) and download and install the free version of MalwareBytes

www.malwarebytes.org/

allow MalwareBytes to update then do a full scan. Remove anything that it flags.

Kiwi Jon, does Malwarebytes work compatibly with antivirus software such as Nod32? I used to run spybot and adaware but the guys at eset asked me to run it one last time then take it off the hard-drive before I installed N32, as Nod32 would conflict with it. I know I keep getting tracking cookies due to the types of ads that keep popping up, so probably getting other annoying spy things as well, but I'm wary of downloading anything that will conflict with my AV software.

^^^

The free version of Malwarebytes is purely a anti-malware scan tool. It does not do any background resident monitoring so can be used happily with any AV. I usually temporarily disable any AV when doing a Malwarebytes scan.

Spybot S&D is also fine as a stand alone scanner if you do not run TeaTimer, which is a background resident monitor.

Adaware I haven't used in years as I found it became bloated and ineffective.

The issue I have with some AV's is that they are very noisy. They are always popping up asking if you want to do this or do that. Most people have no idea what the message means so click Yes to make it go away which may be the wrong answer.

do i run them in the order you posted Kiwi Jon, thank you so much for the advice too, i really appreciate it and yes pretty pissed off with myself for not having hte protection, having back up files..etc

If you know how to get into Safe Mode (F8 key at boot) then I would go to Safe Mode with Networking and download, install, update and full scan with MalwareBytes first. Then download and run unhide.exe.

KIWI JON i could KISS YOU Thank you so much i have all my lost files photos etc ALL BACK You are my hero..i have had the week after trouble with a ewe popping her inners out after lambing..that got sorted this morning, they are back in and held with a retainer...now i ahve all my files back...i just can not thank you enough..have a awesome weekend....i will toast you later..THANK YOU XOX

Malwarebytes is great, I had a slightly similar experience a while back but ran a file recovery program and got all my stuff back. Installed and ran malwarebytes and it found and dealt to a number of dirty little buggers. Run the update function regually and do a quick scan once a week or so, mine sits along side Avast happily but as Kiwi Jon says, it doesn't run in the background so doesn't trigger any virus alerts from it's Trojan database.
Lesson learned for me to. BURN YOUR VITAL FILES AND PICTURES TO DVD OR CD. Or these days you could save them to an external hard drive but you can run the risk of transferring any Trojans or viruses to the other drive.