I just wanted to warn everyone. For the past few days I have been recovering from a virus (my computer, that is) that laid my hard drive to waste. Couldn't boot, couldn't read anything from it even when I installed the drive in my boy's computer. I finally managed to fix the boot record and recover all my data (thank heavens), but Windows was corrupted beyond repair.

I tried loading Windows over the original file system -- to keep from having to transfer all my data from my boy's computer -- but the virus was still lurking and immediately took me out again. So I had to completely format the drive and reloaded it with everything. I was running virus protection software, but obviously it can't be totally up to date every minute.

So beware everyone, and make backups often.

Tim

freaky. do you have any idea where this virus came from?

Not a clue. I had done nothing unusual.

Where do you know it's a virus? My PC at home doesn't work correctly too since last Friday, only in restricted Windows mode. And how do I clean my hard drive from it? Ciao, Andreas

For me the symptoms were consistant with a classic attack on my partition boot sector and the main boot record (the part on the disk that tells the computer how to start up). It's possible that the disk 'crashed' because of a power surge or something, but it seems very much like a virus attack. Your symptoms don't seem so clear. I'm not sure what you mean by "restricted Windows mode." You should run an anti-virus program every day, one that gets updates daily from the net. You may be suffering from some other degradation. Windows and other operating system are said to degrade over time due to registry problems and other stuff. This can be solved by saving all your data onto some other medium, like DVDs, or even another hard drive installed in your computer. Then reformat your drive and reload Windows and everything else. I know it's a big job but it's recommended by some to do this every few years to keep your system snappy. Whatever you do, definitely back up your data as soon as possible. Your data is much more valuable than the computer. Tim