The other day I mentioned that my laptop broke and it sucks because most, if not all, of my business online stuff was stored on there. Honestly, it sucks because I’m at somewhat of a standstill and if you guys have any information, feel free to drop me a line!
The story of what happened to my laptop…
It happened on Sunday night and I wasn’t doing anything out of the norm when I was on it. I use Windows XP and I had a few tabs open with Firefox, I was logged into one of my blogs and also had Google opened. Next thing you know my antivirus program, McAfee, popped up a bunch of messages saying “Trojan detected, blocked and removed.”
Now, I didn’t think too much of this because it happens and I had my antivirus working. But all of a sudden, I get about five more pop ups with different “Trojan detected” messages and removed.
Of course, I got very curious. And weirdly enough, I look at the bottom right where my antivirus icon is and it says “You are not protected.” Before I even got a chance to scan my computer, I was just trying to turn everything back on.
Then I get these internet explorer pop ups and I think “Damn, I got a bunch of spyware!”
So, I proceed to trying to scan my computer with McAfee and noticed that none of the images were displaying when I open the program up. All I see is the broken image files of it and the text. I then click scan and then it pauses and I get an error message and it won’t scan anymore.
Odd. I also have this program called “Spy Sweeper” in which it is a spyware remover so I decided to try that out. Same thing happened; I scan and then get some error message.
At this point, I have no idea what is going on and I’m pissed. Next thing you know I’m getting these pop up messages that say my computer is not protected and that I should download this antivirus software. A little balloon message also pops up from the bottom right where you icons are saying something on the lines of:
“You are not protected and you need to download this antivirus program. Click on this baloon to proceed.”
If you noticed, “baloon” was spelled incorrectly so right then and there I knew it had to be some sort of spyware wanting me to download some crap. I still had access to the internet so I decided to re-download my Spy Sweeper and re-install it figuring I could do that to try to scan.
When I tried that, the download worked but when I went to re-install, the entire program froze. That didn’t work…
I decided that I would restart my computer and start it in “safe mode”. When I did that, none of my programs would work. Matter of fact, I couldn’t open any of the folders.
After playing around for a while trying to figure things out, I decided that I would try my “system restore” and just restore to a previous day… maybe like a week before any of this crap happened.
You would have thought that worked, huh? Wrong! Just like all the other programs not working, my system restore wouldn’t work either.
Now if I try to turn on my computer, half the times it doesn’t load to Windows and the other half it does but I can’t do anything (can’t open folders, programs, etc).
Anyone have any advice? I could use the help because I just need to get some documents off my laptop.
Oh, and if you sent me an e-mail and waiting for a response, please be patient because I’m trying to get everything fixed. Thanks!
it must be all that porn you are downloading : )
The best protection is to not get it in the first place, with that said. In the future, I would regularly back up your MyDocuments folder, this is where all your important files should be stored anyways. The programs you can always reinstall after a fresh install of Windows. Just out of curiosity, do you have blackberry’s desktop manager installed? I have had a problem booting up to windows after installing that software. The only thing I can think of is to maybe go into safemode again and run msconfig, go to the start items and uncheck all the crap that is in there minus explorer and important pc services. Keep us posted.
My guess is mate that McAfee wasn’t protecting you in the first place. You should get Nod32 which is so far the best anti virus software. And also your “Spy sweaper” might have caused the trouble in the first place. Download something better like Spybot. About System Restore, never ever ever use it. Even if it worked it would have screwed your pc even more. If you want to back up your Windows, documents and stuff use Acronis True Image. This program can back up your whole Windows, installed programs and documents in compressed file. Burn the file on a DVD and if you ever want to reinstall your Windows you just use the DVD. It takes no more than 15 minutes and you get a clean Windows with all of your stuff there.
About getting your files I don’t know what to tell ya. If all of your important files are on a disc drive other than C: you can just reinstall your Windows and format disc C:. If your files are on disc D: they won’t be changed.
Hope I helped. I’ve had enough Windows crashes for a lifetime so I’ve picked some tricks on how to fix my pc.
Cheers !
dude, get AVG! AVG would have killed that bug before it reached within 1 million mega bytes! hehe!
and use fire fox dude. check my review of Firefox and my hatings on IE, Dude didn’t you hear what happened to IE and its Major Security Bug?
Dude. Switch to Linux. This is a sign from heaven.
Try Ubuntu…
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Ouch…..that’s never fun to deal with. Good luck with the recovery process.
I read through it all and my advice to you is, get to another computer fast and you may want to change the passwords to any accounts you may have logged into (paypal, adsense, ect.) You don’t know if you may have gotten some sort of keyloger virus.
Any way, Get an external hard drive and back up all your files (only the important stuff) Then do a complete factory restore of the computer.
Some usefull tips:
-Back up your firefox stuff with the FEBE plugin.
-Write down what programs you have installed.
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Try using a linux live CD (Kubuntu or any other) and browse your disk to copy the important files in a pendrive. Then reformat the whole thing. Btw avoid that Mc Afee thingy. Better use Nod32 or AVG.
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OK here is how you can likely get your data: Get a hard drive case – the kind for external hard drives and remove your hard drive from your lap-top and install in the case. Find a nice already protected computer, and you should be able to attach your hard drive like any other external drive without starting the system on it etc.
Just navigate to your documents folder and copy them. It should also be a way you can scan the drive with anti-virus software, since the software on the new “host” computer isn’t contaminated.
Just an idea, but it has worked for me in the past and the hard drive case is pretty cheap.
Sorry to hear about your computer! Something similar happened to me last week, but luckily I had a friend who was able to fix it. Maybe you can get a tweet-a-thon going and see if anyone can help you out? Good luck!
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What I have noticed A LOT of internet business people do is have a backup computer in case of emergencies. The computer doesn’t have to be high-tech, but something that would allow a person to just log on. I have also noticed A LOT of bloggers using laptops for blogging rather than a desktop computer. That’s a good thing, but a desktop computer is always more reliable.
-Mike
Wow…aint that some crap!
I had something similar happen to my desktop. It completely took over my computer saying everything was infected and to download a certain program now.
I ended up downloading some software called Malwarebytes, ran it and it took care of everything.
Good luck
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Booting up with Linux might help, or if the hard drive is still intact you could put it in another laptop.Also, I use a program called Windows Advance Care for problems like this, and yes, it works and it is free.
http://www.iobit.com/advancedwindowscareper.html
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I’ve had the exact same bug/problem.
It’s a clever little trojan that first infects users, and then convinces people to buy a virus remover from them so they can fix it.
You have to edit some stuff in your registry to fix the problem.
Check out Bleeping Computer dot COM, they have a bunch of support staff that will help you out for free.
You didn’t mention running Stinger, McAfee’s quick down and dirty program that searches for the most recent and invasive viruses. You might also want to run the online Panda scan to see what it finds; at least that part is free, and if it finds something you can then go onto Google to learn how to get rid of it, if you’re comfortable going into your registry files. Try all that stuff first before you just up and trash the computer; good luck with it all.
Hi Datmoney, I just had that same thing happen to me a day ago. I had a warning come up telling me that I had virus problems and that I was not running any virus protection. I did have AVG and spybot. Then I got all kinds of warnings telling me that I had to download whatever to renew my protection. Long story made short I had to finally close my laptop manually only because everything was frozen. I called my Cp Tech guy and he came over and said I had “SMIT” which is some kind of virus or bug they call it. He told me to never download anything that I didn’t ask for, well I didn’t, but he told me they make it so you are downloading it when you don’t even know you are. Great. My computer is still being worked on I guess DeSmitting lol. But Tim my cp guy did tell me that he had 5 other computers in his shop with this SmitVirus. So you aren’t the only one… wish me luck I get my back tomorrow day after Christmas.If only I had read this post before I might have avoided this happening to mine… but thanks for the extra bits of advice I did get from your post and comments!! Have a great Christmas and good luck with computers for the New Year.
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Hello,
I also had a similiar problem after switching to a different internet provider that offered McAffee for free to their customers. We had Norton with the other provider for nearly a year with no trouble at all. After weeks of doing everything from reinstalling the operating system to removing McAffee and other spyware, I kept getting the blue screen. Here is what you do: Turn your computer on and choose the option to bring it up in Safe Mode with command prompt. Type msconfig in the run box. Choose diagnostic mode. Restart. Call McAffee and ask them for two things. 1) A McAffee removal tool to completely remove all traces of McAffee. 2) A list of all software removal tools for software that is incompatible with McAfee. They will email it to you. If you can’t get to your email have them email the links to a friend so you can burn them to disk. Use the McAffee removal tool first and then the tools for any of the software you may have had on your computer at one time or another. When you have done all this, feel free to reinstall all the other spyware software that you would like to install. What ever you do DO NOT EVER REINSTALL MCAFFEE. If you cant get the software removal tools from McAffee, ask for a supervisor. If that doesn’t work, email me and I will be more than happy to send you the links and assist you in any way I can. Good luck and God bless. By the way, I now have AVG free on my computer. It is great with XP and Vista. You can download it from download.com. Make sure you download the one with the free license. Spybot Search and Destroy is also a good one. I also recommend Glary utilities (it even comes with a free registry fixer) that actually removes ALL the errors it finds. It has a one click fix if you are not too computer savvy. However I’m sure you will find it to be very easy to use the entire utility. The software I have suggested have always kept all my computers running smoothly and work great with all operating systems. Download.com guarantees all their software downloads to be spyware free. I’ve been downloading from them for years.
Nicole
I hope for the recoverty and make some safety as it is known for very hugh maintainance to keep for such events.