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.
THE SMALL(ish) PRINT... (updated 23/07/2016)
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Heavens, Stef.
That's a sore one. 🙁
Oh my God. That's unbelievable. Everything...
Yup, everything.
I'm hopeful that I can get some things back via the web. Photos I can get from my SmugMug account (although I'm not sure about costs) and I suspect that it's possible to get the walking routes back by retrieving the .kml data from my Umapper account. I have most of the bare maps on the original CDs. I don't know how much email data I can drag out of Virgin Media via webmail. Most other things will have to be rebuilt from scratch.
Blimey, that's terrible. I'm amazed your antivirus software didn't get it. What were you using and what was the Trojan? All my data is backed up on three disks, one of which is at my parents.
Good luck with the rebuild. I know what a pain it is.
I was using AVG, Malwarebytes and Ad-Aware behind the pre-installed firewall. No idea what the Trojan was called, I had intended to go to the quarantine to find out after the first clean boot-up but that's not going to happen now.
Terrible. I lost my hd two years ago, so I know what you're going through.
I recommend getting a Mac, btw. Then these problems are a thing of the past.
Sorry to hear this, Stef. It makes my current Roxio Media Manager problem seem very minor. I got great help from the Geek Police, all FOC, when infected by malware a few months ago. But discovered that failure to change all passwords caused subsequent problems. Have kept everything regularly backed up off-site for several years now - never know when the HD may break, even if the bugs can be withstood...
Hmmm - want me to look into recovering the data? Grab my email address from the comments if you want to give me a shout about it.
Cheers for that kind offer, Gordy, I'll email you soon 8)
Mac's are simply superb - I really love mine. I have an iPhone and the synchronisation between the two is excellent. If you are looking for a new PC as a consequence of this, take a look at Mac's. It's a sea-change but as a die-hard Windows user for decades, I converted and it was amazing. I really hope you've managed to get everything back, or at least as much as possible, by now. Really sorry BG. It's just...shit.