Lost Everything and have to hand in IT coursework tomorrow...HELP

[Deleted User]

Well, it seems like the 'geeks have taken over the asylum' and lost sight of the OP. Last time i managed to break my PC badly it was still using FAT32. I also managed to recover a tonne of dead files after running scandisk and looking at the file contents through DOS. Ah, those were the days.

Anyway, has the OP managed to get the files back?

RussJK

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Anyway, has the OP managed to get the files back?

We'll find out. She got scared away by too much information from people who didn't understand the real problem.

Lil306

RussJK wrote: »

We'll find out. She got scared away by too much information from people who didn't understand the real problem.

Russ you should be called Chip, your comments in this thread are getting harsher by the minute.

I logged off when I left for work yesterday came back to find 4 pages of add on crap talking about internet articles and everything else.

I'd like to think I know my way around computers, so my advice is still sound. Yes the OP sounds like they have malware but it's safer getting a copy of the data first in the instance everything goes **** up.

If OP reads this feel free to PM me if your confused and I'll explain anything what's needed

asbokid

There are a couple of excellent online books on computer security that can be downloaded for free.

The first book is called Security Engineering, by Professor Ross Anderson, chair of the security engineering group at University of Cambridge. Anderson is regularly in the news for high profile discoveries of security weaknesses found by his group. Often these relate to the banking industry, the chip and pin system, and to the ATM network. The group has also published some amusing if shocking stories about electronic voting machines that should send a shiver down the spine of all supporters of democracy..

http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/book.html

The second book is Hacking Linux Exposed. Part of Chapter 5 is dedicated to Rootkits, their implication for security, tools for their detection and recovery from rooting. As the title makes clear, the book is written for Linux adminstrators, but much of the advice is common sense, and relevant to other systems including Windows. The authors give important advice about no longer trusting any binary, nor system library on a rooted machine, and to rely only on binaries stored on a read-only media, and only rely on statically-compiled binaries (that have all the necessary system library functions compiled within them).

http://niontron.com/Hacking.pdf

debitcardmayhem

ringo_24601 wrote: »

wow, talk about hijacking a thread for your own diatribe asbokid

Has anyone tried taking the hard disk out, putting it in a new box and booting up with a Linux CD? The files might actually still be there.. it could be that the FAT32 record is knackered by a virus. There are file recovery tools that could get stuff back.

OP has no other pc to use, plus as post 1 suggests it is malware , and many posters have tried to assure the op that their data is probably (99.999% certain) still there .... However some of the posts have been a bit off topic and quite irrelevant in terms of helping/assuring the OP. Plus the OP is running Vista so it is really unlikely to be FAT32 file system, more than likely the b-stards have just hidden the files using something really esoteric like ATTRIB +H c:\ /S

free4440273

Yes the OP sounds like they have malware but it's safer getting a copy of the data first in the instance everything goes **** up.

^ agreed !

Linbox

ringo_24601 wrote: »

wow, talk about hijacking a thread for your own diatribe asbokid

Has anyone tried taking the hard disk out, putting it in a new box and booting up with a Linux CD? The files might actually still be there.. it could be that the FAT32 record is knackered by a virus. There are file recovery tools that could get stuff back.

Good Idea but far more work that just using a LiveCD and a flash drive/ext hdd, problem may be that there is no way to download said LiveCD with the pc not wanting to play. Ho hum, no backup, no matter how much you tell em [;)]

asbokid

ddoris wrote: »

Very interesting points made by asbokid -probably going under most readers' heads.

I suppose people don't like mixing politics and organised crime with virus squishing.

We've been conditioned into thinking that malware is written by spotty autistic teenagers with plenty time on their hands, but no real malice in them.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

Computer hacking is a huge enterprise, costing our economies many billions of dollars a year, and no doubt costing lives, too.

There are two major beneficiaries in this modern black industry..

The malware writers, who use their code to harvest personal security details and ultimately to steal money.

But also the players in the anti-virus software industry are now billion dollar mega-corporations. Much of that industry is located, apparently, in Belarus, Bulgaria, Russia, Lithuania and the Ukraine.

No doubt all of the anti-virus s/w developers start out with the best of intentions, wanting to rid the world of malware.

However, at some point, the temptation to actually create and release computer viruses in order to boost the sales of your anti-virus software must overwhelm even the most reputable developer!

To put it bluntly.. the AV software houses are in bed with the malware coders..

free4440273

I'll put it bluntly.. the AV software houses are in bed with the malware coders..

^^^wow/ :shocked: really ?

RussJK

Lil306 wrote: »

I'd like to think I know my way around computers, so my advice is still sound. Yes the OP sounds like they have malware but it's safer getting a copy of the data first in the instance everything goes **** up.

I know everyone wanted to help given the circumstances, but the conflicting advice from posters who don't usually involve themselves in malware threads only served to stress & paralyse the OP (read page 2 in particular). It was clearly malware related, and could have been fixed in the time it takes to do a Malwarebytes quick scan and run Unhide.

A bit of empathy would have gone a long way. It was a high stress situation for the OP: she had one inconsolable daughter with coursework due the next day and a computer giving scary, fake warnings. She's wasn't confident with computers and didn't want to make anything worse - or be blamed if she did. She needed assurance that nothing had actually been deleted, as well as calm advice from people who knew the actual problem. The worse thing to do in such circumstances is to overwhelm her with possibilities and fear mongering.

With the above in mind, someone thinking of posting should have decided whether their advice helped or hindered, and whether it fit what the poster was capable of. Since you weren't sure what was happening, then it would have been better not to post at all and let closed, debitcard, or stilltheone walk the OP through running Malwarebytes. If you think that's harsh, then so be it. I'm not perfect either, and originally gave a bad link for Malwarebytes.

(Just so you know, Piriform Recuva isn't a backup utility so unfortunately it wouldn't have helped make a copy of her daughter's work. You can read up on what it does here if you'd like to know the circumstances in which it'd be useful.)