GD Virus...

[HaRuMaN]

Had to backup everything on DVD's, and format my damn computer.  Pisses me off to no end.  Grrr

[SOAPboy]

Cry?

i format monthly..

why?

I want my machine, to run like day one 24/7

[JoyMonkey]

I heard there's this virus. You watch it and right after your phone rings. It says Bill Gates is going to take your soul in seven days...

[elvis]

Cry?

i format monthly..

why?

I want my machine, to run like day one 24/7

What the hell?

I'll never understand windows users.  You people not only accept ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- software in your life, but pay for it too. 

And don't tell me you've pirated your software either, because I don't want to hear about your petty theft.

[lucindrea]

i rotate 3 backups every weekend on dvd ( ghost images of my HD to 3 sets of 3 dvd-rw's ) and hence i never need to fully re-format a drive , i've come close ... 99% of the time my antivirus program , anti-spy program , software firewall and hardware fire wall ( heh ya , i'm a network engineer for a living ) dows prevent any problems .. but every so often one of the nasty bugs that the vir compinies havent had time to update does hit , and it's hurt , the worst that could happen now is i go back to last weekends backup :-)

of course this doesnt prevent me shift-deleting somthing ( doesnt go into recycle bin that way and undelete programs have problems with it also ) like a doc i was working on the other night , did i delete the copy i though i did , noooo i deleted the good version ... *sigh*

[RayB]

Every virus I've ever had I was able to clean off through a series of boots with anti-virus boot disks and full file check/cleaning.

You shouldn't really have to reformat unless the virus damaged your boot sector... (and make sure to scan your backups. you could have backed up the virus too!)

[HaRuMaN]

After two hours of Windows Update...  back up to speed, I guess.  Now to reinstall MAME...  *sigh*

[danny_galaga]

correct me if im wrong, but if (like me) you only have your OS on one drive and anything important on another won't that be protection enough from viruses? just reformat that sucker and that's that. even if it doesn't protect from viruses, at least i'm protected from poxy windows crashes...

[CCM]

Yea, I don't understand the need to reformat on a regualr basis.  I've fixed friend's computers that were riddled with viruses and spyware and haven't had to reformat.  To me reformatting is a last, extreme solution. 

[Sephroth57]

i just keep windows installed on my crappy 20GB HD i salvaged from an old computer. everything important goes on my 200GB HD. Usually nortan can handle most things but for some reason if it gets really messed up i can just format C: and its all good, viruses always hit the drive with windows on it, ive never had them bother my storage files

[DrewKaree]

correct me if im wrong, but if (like me) you only have your OS on one drive and anything important on another won't that be protection enough from viruses? just reformat that sucker and that's that. even if it doesn't protect from viruses, at least i'm protected from poxy windows crashes...

I've heard of the ability to wipe out drives other than C: but I think those are the kind you have to DL and open like a moron.

Stay away from those porn sites* and warez sites*, don't open up file types that others send you, send all your e-mail list buddies the "I'm going to hunt you down and kill you if you send me one more chain letter", or conversely, use THEIR e-mail address for web sites requiring an address to join, blah blah blah blah blah

*other than the sites I go to - those are virus free

[Harry Potter]

Stay away from those porn sites*

What else am I supposed to do on those lonely nights? 

don't open up file types that others send you

Thanks for the heads up. Everyone is on my blocked list.

[DrewKaree]

What else am I supposed to do on those lonely nights? 

Get to know "YOU".....use your imagination

Thanks for the heads up. Everyone is on my blocked list.

Don't worry, you won't miss all the e-mail both those people sent you

[HaRuMaN]

correct me if im wrong, but if (like me) you only have your OS on one drive and anything important on another won't that be protection enough from viruses? just reformat that sucker and that's that. even if it doesn't protect from viruses, at least i'm protected from poxy windows crashes...

It's a laptop, so only one 80 gig HD.

I tried everything I could to get rid of this crap.  It was using my computer to mail spam, barraging me with popups, among other things.  I used Spybot, Norton, HiJack This, Ad-Aware, AVG...  nothing was working.  I tried booting under safe mode, and deleting it, no good.  So, after all that, is why I resorted to extreme measures.

And yes, it was my fault, I got it from a warez site...  vicious little bugger.  I learned my lesson, though.   

[DrewKaree]

Haru, check your PM, if you're still with us and reading this.  Otherwise, when you're back up and running, check 'em then.

The solution to your problems

[ErikRuud]

I just went through a similar nightmare, only it wasn't due to a virus.

It started when I updated my ATI video drivers. And then updated DirectX and Media Player through the Windows Update.  Several things seemed to be adversely affected by the updates and I tried to back them out.  The ATI Uninstall utility crashed halfway through and really screwed my system up.

Imediatley after the crash, my system would not come up at all.  Just a black screen and a single beep every two seconds.  So I rebooted from my Win2K install disk, and did a system repair.  Now I could get back in, but the registry was hosed so bad, that I was getting error about missing .msi files for prgrams that I had installed many months ago.  If I started Internet Explorer, I got more install warnings.    If I opened  the Add/Remove programs panel, I got the icons, but know text.  Scan for Updates at Windows Update would freeze.  Support for drives larger than 137 Gig was gone. For a while I thought I was going to have to write off a whole 100 gig partition.

I too found that I had to wipe the C: drive and reinstall Win2K.

I was able to copy almost everything the C: drive onto the other 100gig partition before hand.  I too also had most of my software and data on the other drives.  C: was mostly for windows and a few things that had been installed before I got the 200gig drive.

In the end, the only thing I lost, besidea a lot of time, was all my saved emails.  I had installed Thunderbird on the D: drive, but I did not realise that it stores all the emails and profile stuff under Documents and Settings\(user name)\Application Data\thunderbird\profile.

Anyone want to reccomend a 3D card that is not ATI?  I've had too many driver update issues with them, and TV out is really not an issue for me.

[HaRuMaN]

Why not an nVIDIA card such as GeFORCE?

[Sephroth57]

geforce > radeon   

[Ravant]

geforce > radeon

[Daniel270]

I've been looking up a few odd and end programs and got bombarded with viruses....

gotta learn NOT to use the hack 'n crack stuff... lol

got VERY lucky my a/v got it all

[SOAPboy]

Cry?

i format monthly..

why?

I want my machine, to run like day one 24/7

What the hell?

I'll never understand windows users.