help virus .............(system tool)

[ukbiggles]

Yep, I did that as well but, foolishly, I stored a few really big files, that I thought I would rarely need, just on the external hard drive.

You can guess what happened - the external hard drive packed up and all I get is a 'doesn't recognise the USB device' report

Cheers

Julian

Sorry to hear that Julian. Unfortunately, after a few PC moments, I've decided the only way to protect myself is to always have two copies. Maybe you could write those big files to DVD in future (in addition to external drive?)

Is the Drive completely US? Does the same error occur if you plug it in to another PC?

Gord

[jleyton]

Sorry to hear that Julian. Unfortunately, after a few PC moments, I've decided the only way to protect myself is to always have two copies. Maybe you could write those big files to DVD in future (in addition to external drive?)

Is the Drive completely US? Does the same error occur if you plug it in to another PC?

Gord

Hi Gord, thanks for your interest,

I think I've also now learned to store things in two places

As for the hard drive I have tried it on other computers with the same result and I've replaced it, perhaps foolishly, with exactly the same make (Verbatim) and model and it works perfectly on my computer - hence apparently ruling out any incompatibilty between computer and hard drive.

Cheers

Julian

[stagmuffin]

Hi steve, if you want to back things up going forwards, I think the best way is to buy and external hard drive that connects via the USB port. Best to get an external hard drive that is bigger capacity than your PC then it'll still be useful if you ever upgrade to a bigger, better PC. (Cost, less than a brake master!)

As well as the drive, you'd need some backup software like SyncToy (free fom Microsoft). Once you have backed up you PC once, it will then do incremental backups rather than full systems backup after that. So it's dead quick after the first time.

If you go down this route, I'd be happy to lead you through the setup if you need someone to.

Gord

hi gord thanks for the idea might well go this way soon but not a prob at the minute as there is nowt to save.but if you dont mind i will maybe come back to it in a few weeks when im less biusy and get advice from you .
thanks steve.......................

[Ian Durrant]

I just leave it attached to my PC and it does what it says.

Its not a good idea to leave it attached. Something like a mains power spike could take out the PC and the hard drive at the same time. (And no a surge trip may not protect you). Best idea is to backup up once a day or once a week and put the external drive in a drawer. Even better is to have two external drives and swap them so you have three copies. You can never have too many backups!!!!

[StagnJag]

I really don't think you should have lost your files over this. If you search the internet for "System Tool" and 'Removal you get plenty of hits.

If the virus wasn't removable, the Hard drive could have been taken out and put into a disk caddy or similar and plugged into another computer with a good antivirus software and the disc could have been scanned that way, and certainly all of the documents moved over and copied to disk for you. Of course by 'another computer' I mean a dedicated one that your computer place 'could' have had with only windows and the antivirus software on it to assist in file recovery.

By disk caddy I mean an external box that the hard drive can be placed into - that is essentially what these external hard drives are - just a normal hard drive in a box.

Of course the above is only speculation as I wasn't there and didn't see your particular situation. I wish I had read your original post better when you first posted it when you stated the virus name.

Sorry it didn't work out better for you.

Regards

Dave

[stagmuffin]

dave thanks for your input ,it seems i got a bit shafted by the pc clinic i went to. but i wont be going there again .
steve................
thats what happens when you know jack s**t about puters!!!

[redstag]

Hi Steve,

About an hour after reading your last post I got hit by the same virus. AVG didn't stop it.
Of course, the automatic back-up unit I bought 3 months ago was all set up and protecting my data - not a hope, it was still in its box beside my pc.

Spent hours last night backing up my photos in safe mode before trying to get rid of the virus. Fortunately my son was home and with the help of the internet we managed to get rid of it. Sorry it didn't work out well for you.

Now, todays task - maybe get the backup unit running?

Pete

[marshman]

I think I've also now learned to store things in two places

As for the hard drive I have tried it on other computers with the same result and I've replaced it, perhaps foolishly, with exactly the same make (Verbatim) and model and it works perfectly on my computer - hence apparently ruling out any incompatibilty between computer and hard drive.

Cheers

Julian

Julian,
if you are feeling brave and the files on the defunct driver are important then you could try simply swapping the actual harddrives over. inside the usb external drives there are 2 parts, 1 is the actual hard disk (same as in a laptop) and the other is an interface PCB between the disk and the uSB lead. There is a very good possibility it is the USB bit that has failed and not the disk drive. Its easy and straight forward to swap the bits over and if it doesn' t work just put it all back as it was and you've lost nothing apart from 15mins of your time. worth a try in my opinion.

Roger

[stagmuffin]

hi pete,its so bloody frustrating when this happens but at least you managed to save your data. but now im worried because ive signed up with AVG to protect my system ,didnt have this one last time and now it has defeated the same system on yours ! what to do ? certainly wont go to the same pc clinic again. think i will need to take advice and do some searching.
steve............................

[Ian Durrant]

hi pete,its so bloody frustrating when this happens but at least you managed to save your data. but now im worried because ive signed up with AVG to protect my system ,didnt have this one last time and now it has defeated the same system on yours ! what to do ? certainly wont go to the same pc clinic again. think i will need to take advice and do some searching.
steve............................

The particular type of virus you had is not being detected by *any* anti-virus. Their are multiple variants of it, probably being distributed by various different groups They are also changing the code structure every few hours so that the anti virus companies simply can't keep up. Its being distributed (we believe), by infecting innocent websites via a worm ( type of virus) exploiting security flaws in Internet Webservers. When you then visit the website you get either a drive by download or they cleverly throw up a fake webpage, designed to look exactly like an anti virus and get you to click something that initiates the down load, even though that doesn't appear to be the function of the button you are clicking on.

AVG is a good anti virus as is Avast (both free for home use). But we have seen large numbers of machines infected with this type of virus using all flavours of anti virus.

We have have however had some success by combining a decent free anti virus with the paid for version of Malwarebytes. Its about £25 to buy as a one off (i.e you don't have to renew it every year) and you have to set it to update itself every hour and turn on protection mode. It has a web shield that attempts to identify infected web servers rather than the signature of the virus and therefore if they change the virus code, they then push this out to infected web servers and at least Malwarebytes knows they were infected previously and is still blocking those servers. Its still not perfect though and indeed avast uses the same technique but seems less effective than Malwarebytes at it in our experience.

There is no perfect anti virus or it would be called virus proofing, but all you can do is the best you can, or at the moment at least, buy a mac or use Linux.

[jleyton]

Julian,
if you are feeling brave and the files on the defunct driver are important then you could try simply swapping the actual harddrives over. inside the usb external drives there are 2 parts, 1 is the actual hard disk (same as in a laptop) and the other is an interface PCB between the disk and the uSB lead. There is a very good possibility it is the USB bit that has failed and not the disk drive. Its easy and straight forward to swap the bits over and if it doesn' t work just put it all back as it was and you've lost nothing apart from 15mins of your time. worth a try in my opinion.

Roger

Hi Roger,

Thanks a lot for that, I think I'll give it a go because, as you say, I've got nothing to lose.

I'm pretty busy right now tryinng to get the Stag back on the road but I may give this a try in a few weeks time. Would it be ok if I sent you a PM then if I need any more guidance?

Cheers

Julian

[marshman]

Hi Julian,
Of course, if i can help I will.
Roger

[jleyton]

Julian,
if you are feeling brave and the files on the defunct driver are important then you could try simply swapping the actual harddrives over. inside the usb external drives there are 2 parts, 1 is the actual hard disk (same as in a laptop) and the other is an interface PCB between the disk and the uSB lead. There is a very good possibility it is the USB bit that has failed and not the disk drive. Its easy and straight forward to swap the bits over and if it doesn' t work just put it all back as it was and you've lost nothing apart from 15mins of your time. worth a try in my opinion.

Roger

Hi Roger,

Spurred on by your advice, I dismantled my two, apparently identical, Verbatim hard drives last night.

It was all looking very encouraging as I dismantled them and got to the stage of swapping the hard drives when I realised that, despite initially looking identical, I realised that they were, in fact, quite different

You can see on this picture how all the connections are in different places and so there's no way they're going to match up, sadly.

Anybody got any other thoughts or advice?

Cheers

Julian

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