Oops B***er

[Bixxer Bob]

I was happily doing some research last night when I clicked on a tech data sheet download link.  Instead of a download frame opening McAfee goes beserk, warnings popping up all over the place, CPU goes into overdrive.  "That shouldn't be happening", I thinks so pulls the plug on the broadband hub.

Too late though, laptop freezes, turned off, won't boot  

Managed to get in and suck majority of data onto a USB drive but Outlook is effed, so many important Emails lost.  Spent most of today trying to rebuild it but had to give in and do a clean install in the end.  

I know better, but still didn't have everything backed up.  If it matters to you, back it up now, you know you should....  

[Timbox2]

I was happily doing some research last night when I clicked on a tech data sheet download link.  Instead of a download frame opening McAfee goes beserk, warnings popping up all over the place, CPU goes into overdrive.  "That shouldn't be happening", I thinks so pulls the plug on the broadband hub.

Too late though, laptop freezes, turned off, won't boot  

Managed to get in and suck majority of data onto a USB drive but Outlook is effed, so many important Emails lost.  Spent most of today trying to rebuild it but had to give in and do a clean install in the end.  

I know better, but still didn't have everything backed up.  If it matters to you, back it up now, you know you should....  

Happened to me desktop a few weeks back, poxy Trojan got past the firewall, mine would still boot, but the thing took control of everything, clean Install for me too, I was fortunate in having done a full backup the week before, phew.

I'd took Norton off a few weeks before and installed Microsofts own security system on the recommendation of a guy at work, big mistake. Out of interest I put Norton back on, and it immediately found another copy of the Trojan still hiding in the compressed backup and quarantined it, another phew.

[rf9rider]

No problems here, i use Linux.  :D

[harre]

I'm on a Mac so I'm pretty safe from infections. However, I seem to manage to crash my laptop without the help of trojans. "That folder does not seem important, I'd better delete it...". Time Machine (Mac backup utility) saved my day the last time.

[Nick Calne]

Ah Bob, nightmare!

Two things:

Linux is really good.
External hard drives for backing up are £50 at PC world....

[MtheTiger]

Always perform regular backups (works also good on GF's  :lol:  8) )

I do this weekly on two different HD's and yearly also on DVD's.

I use the free AVAST scanner which works a treat and recognizes & quarantines everything. Mc Afee & Norton are way to large and make PC's very slow because of all the shit they're running in the background so no thanx for me.

Cheers

M

[cosmo]

Ah Bob, nightmare!

Two things:

Linux is really good.
External hard drives for backing up are £50 at PC world....

Hell, I've been known to duct tape in a second internal; works the same, easy enough to swop. Bit cheaper, too.

Cosmo

[Bixxer Bob]

Got a local server for storage / backups, just didn't do them often enough.  How do you make Outlook store on a server instead of the local C drive?

[Nick Calne]

You'd probably need microsoft exchange, what are you running on the server, what sort of server you got etc?

You can always save emails in .msg format- that's another simple way of backing up the important ones.