I reinstalled my laptop because I got 37 viruses from a "friend" at college, and I backup almost everything.. SNASM, BasiEGAXorz, etc, BUT all my source codes!
NOOO!! I had some nice programs written out, and I lost them all, every single one.
I feel so lost, I'm back at square one. I am literally saddened by this.
Jorge Nuno wrote:You formated the HDD, or they became encrusted/garbled?
I always keep a recent copy of them in the univ's PCs (personal area of course)...
formatted..
whenever i reinstall my OS's, i format it.. and no, no chance of the data being there, i filled the laptops HD up with music, so i'm sure the data was overwritten by now.
Jorge Nuno wrote:Bahhhh... that's why I never format, there is always something important that goes away...
You could try to recover them anyway...
I always prefer a clean installation when reinstalling Windows, that way no other permissions are left over, or any chance of anything bad remaining...
A friend of mine who was a teacher had a Mac IIx (this was a while ago). He picked up several DOZEN viruses from school. He complained to me about not being able to keep his Mac running and thought it was a hardware problem. I brought over a write-protected boot floppy (yes, you could boot a computer OS from floppies back then) with SAM on it. EVERY SINGLE LAST FILE had a MINIMUM of a half dozen infections. The reason his computer didn't work is the viruses were fighting each other to infect his files. I sterilized his hard drive, had him back up his personal files (after they were disinfected), and formatted the drive. I then put a clean copy of the OS on it, installed SAM to run automatically, then had him scan every single floppy he had (most were as badly infected as his harddrive). I had him write down every step we took, then go do the same on the school computers.
I have never since seen a computer that was as bad off as that one. The last virus I had to deal with myself was on Windows XP when I was still using NAV. NAV has turned into junk... most of the BIG AV apps for Windows are now complete junk. It's best not to use them. The last one I used in Windows was F-Prot. That was MUCH better than NAV. I've since switched to linux. I'm much happier as a result.
I use mainly Mac OS X (but Windows XP on my laptop)..
Luckily in Mac OS X, you'd be STUPID to get a virus, even if there were any that truly were even classified as a virus.
(in OS X, if the System directory or a script was to execute, the OS asks for your password.. if you foolishly enter a password without even doing anything, that's your fault.. but that never happens, it's the minority).
Norton is crap, you should all be using AVG Free Edition ... and anyway, no need to format a PC just because you had a virus. That can be corrected even if it's a boot sector virus (most aren't.. most rely on windows components) you can still remove them and not risk losing precious data.