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When you are used to typing on a computer keyboard, writing a blogpost on an iPad is not easy… But necessity dictates! I seem to have been attacked by my first-ever virus! All of a sudden my screen went black and all of my icons (except recycle bin and McAfee Internet Security icons) just disappeared. And a whole slew of really nasty threatening things titled File Recovery told me everything was critical and I must do such and such to get my files back. Every minute the invader would spit out another nasty notice: Data error reading drive C:, the device cannot find enough free resources that it can use, critical error- hard drive controller failure, serious disc error writing, drive C error –sector not found, device initialization failed critical error – drive sector not found – error. Plus, a whole series of overlapping notices informing me that “A write command during the test has failed to complete. This may be due to a media or read/write error. The system generates an exception error when using a reference to an invalid custom address.” And there you have it?
I did a McAfee’s scan which took several hours, scanning over 200000 items. In the end McAfee told me “Full scan complete. All issues have been resolved. McAfee has eliminated all threats on your PC. ” Viruses, Trojans and Cookies quarantined. Artemis!507EEBE93FA2 found and fixed. Scan summary: Total 252889 Files 235837 Cookies 119 Processes 138 Registry items 9230 Boot records 4. The virus was still sitting there in full view and McAfee was telling me it had scanned my computer and had fixed everything?
A friend who does Information Technology for a living advised getting McAfee’s Stinger but first I should go to Start, find my programs, and put them on a thumb drive! When I told my son, Dan, my troubles, he googled “File recovery virus” and got instructions for removing it. Halfway through the process it wanted $59 to continue. We paid the money. Dan worked on my computer for hours. Finally I came home and found my desktop looking normal except for a different screensaver. Oh, happy day? I clicked an icon. NOTHING!
According to Dan, he had worked in safe mode until everything was fine. It turns out that when he rebooted all the icons came back but they didn’t work! He told me I should work in safe mode for awhile. Or maybe get rid of my dinosaur and get myself a new computer. As Dan explained it, the virus had added an H (for Hide) to all my programs, and then told my computer to hide all the programs with an H. It seems they were there all the time and all he had to do was un-Hide them.
That’s where we are now. Thank God Katy gave me this iPad for my birthday. But let me tell you, blogging on an iPad touch keyboard is for the birds. At this moment I am working on my computer in SAFE MODE, fixing the errors I made on the iPad. Neither method of blogging is at all satisfactory. Isn’t it wonderful that the iPad will send my work to the Cloud and then I can access it on my computer? Oh, marvelous technological world!
And, so, I am going to publish this post so everyone will understand why I am in limbo. Provided I can do that in SAFE MODE. Maybe I will get rid of my dinosaur (a Compaq PC I’ve had for about ten years) and go modern with a flat screen and all. All this techy stuff is quite beyond my pay grade. Please pray for me and mine.
Oh Dottie! How dreadful. How I wish the computers would just update themselves with full instructions on how to navigate the updates. A computer should get shots to prevent all viruses.
You might want to consider getting a laptop. Any new computer you get will have Windows 7 OS. I had no choice when I got my laptop 2 years ago. I’m still trying to learn all the ins and outs of Win 7! I’ve come to like it okay, but I would have preferred to use XP forever. There otta be a law against Microsoft creating any more new OS’s. Now they’re almost ready to launch Win 8. I’ll have nothing to do with it.
You probably will have to dump your dinasaur. I heartily recommend a laptop. The learning curve is not high. It does everything a desktop will do. Easy keyboard. The monitor is smaller, but I found that not to be a problem. It’s a flat screen, and takes much less space. The problem was the learning curve to use Window 7, but there’s no way around that unless you hire someone to build a new computer and install your favorite OS.
Keep us informed about how you weather this storm. Thank God you had the backup of iPad. Maybe you’ll grow into using it regularly for posting. God bless.
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Dorothy Vining reply on October 20th, 2012 2:03 pm:
Dinosaur dumped. New HP Windows 7 with touchy-feely screen. Much to learn. Thanks for cheering me on.
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McAfee isn’t exactly the best antivirus out there, and most malware these days actually adds itself to the antivirus programs’ “whitelist” immediately upon infecting your computer.
I recommend you remove McAfee and install MBAM (MalwareBytes’ Anti-malware) and AVG Free.
Most malware can only infect your computer through unpatched vulnerabilities, too. Use current versions of all applications and plugins, and keep up with the updates for your computer! This goes for your iPad, too, since each iOS update for the iPad includes security fixes.
I publish a newsletter about this kind of thing and post announcements whenever there are important updates on my SaferPC.info site. I also offer a remote update subscription service where I’ll install the security updates for you.
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