Posts tagged 'Trojan'

Back from the Trojan Wars

Posted by on August 26th 2010 in Thanks
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Thanks to the efforts of Alex and Dan at Computer Plaza, I have a fixed laptop with a clean OS installation. They weren't able to save any useful data but at least the thing works. I've spent a fair few hours downloading and installing stuff from the Lenovo website so as to get back to something like the OEM setup with all the bells and whistles such as the HDD impact-protection, the dedicated extra keys and all of the other original ThinkVantage utilities.

I'm still missing all emails/addresses/attachments, address-book data, organiser data, maps, 30+ years of walking routes, CVs, e-books, employment details, purchase records, service agreements and a few other things, but most of the apps have now been reinstalled.

I'm a tad happier now.

I guess that I have a lot of catching-up to do - Google Reader says that I have 983 posts to read 😯

I'll do another back-up first, though :mrgreen:

That empty feeling

Posted by on August 20th 2010 in A bit of a rant
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Looks like that Trojan has affected more than just the laptop's HDD... the latest backup and the "old" version (both on the USB HDD) are now just empty folders, and the plain copies of the applications are almost empty too. Just folders, hardly any files, nothing of any worth.

Significant total losses include all emails/addresses/attachments, address-books, organisers, maps, 30+ years of walking routes, CVs, e-books, bought software and plugins, employment details, banking records, purchase records, service agreements, encrypted passwords, the list goes on and on.

If I wasn't so gutted, I'd swear.

Offline

Posted by on August 20th 2010 in A bit of a rant
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Thanks to a bad-ass Backdoor Trojan infection, my laptop's been dead for nearly a week. The first I knew about it was when I came back to it after a short break and found that it was randomly and independently opening, moving and deleting files and folders. The mouse-pointer was whizzing about as if controlled by an invisible hand. The only way to stop the process was to pull the mains power and remove the battery.

A recommended and reputable Trojan-remover found the offending crap and dealt with it, but there's been a lot of collateral damage - the boot-sector is trashed and the registry is shredded. I have copies of most of my apps and data on the USB HDD, so losses will be minimal, but reinstalling and configuring all that software will take ages. The hardware's in the repair-shop refusing to allow a clean OS installation.

Luckily I have a kind neighbour who's been generous enough to give me access to his lappy so that I can get online now and again. Thanks, Graham, you're a star!

Sadly I've no access to my email yet, so if you've been expecting a reply from me, please be patient.