panic?

macman

If your business is totally dependent on this PC, then do you not have a backup in in place that you can immediately restore from (preferably using an external USB hard drive)?
If not, then the time to do so is now, not when you get a serious infection, or (more likely) when your hard drive fails, as they all do eventually.

nonnatus

I use Quickbooks and Sage. I have a back-up of both of these programmes on a USB stick, updated every week. So my business is safe.
I just don't know whether to get a new system or not. I assume the other solution (the MSE one) is to wipe this infected computer clean of EVERYTHING and put the stuff back on it that I want to run.
But I don't know HOW to wipe a system clean. I'm currently following the "sticky" tutorial and am running a Malbytes Malware full scan. It's 27 minutes along and has "detected 12 objects" so far, which I presume are nasties....

I don't want to be precious but I can't afford the time this is taking on a Monday (my busiest day for online sales).

macman

In the case of a serious infection, one solution can be to do a simple factory restore or a reinstall of the OS. Both require you to back uo your data/programs and reinstall .You are nowhere near this stage yet, as your symptoms are very minor. You do not need to replace hardware under any circumstances.
A backup system on a flash drive is better than nothing, but it's hardly secure or reliable compared to cloud storage or an external hard drive. Too easily lost/stolen, or just likely to fail. And weekly backup is not really adequate.
I'm sure your time is precious, but you'll lose a lot more of it if you don't plan for the worst case.

nonnatus

Okaaaaaay...

Could you spare a minute to point me in the direction of "cloud Storage" then?

The Malware scan found and deleted 17 threats and my whole computer is running better than before! Whilst I don't feel entirely safe yet, I'm going to take the time to make sure I never have this panic again. Clouds may be the starting point. I'm going to learn some basic "techie" stuff - how difficult can it be?

macman

MBAM does a good job, always an idea to run it once a month or so just to be sure. It all depends how much data you need to back up. Most of the 'free' deals such as Google Drive, Microsoft Skydrive etc, only give you a few GB's free and then start charging you.
I'd have a look at Carbonite, it's a fixed sum (about £49) for unlimited storage (single drive only). Very much install and forget, it just backs up incrementally in the background.
Or just get yourself an external USB hard drive, most come with some sort of automatic backup software included, for example WD Smartware.

waddler_8

nonnatus wrote: »

The Malware scan found and deleted 17 threats

Post the scan log - it'll be found under the logs tab - copy & paste it here.

I've a feeling it'll all relate the the alot toolbar.