Hard drive fucked up. I'm out of comission for a while.

[RamonesFan2020204]

My hard drive is totally fucked up. There are trojan horse viruses eating away at my free hard drive space. I'm on my mom's laptop while I'm typing this. I'm gonna be out of business for a while until I get a new hard drive or a new computer. Until then, I'm out of comission. My brother says the trojans can't do anything while the computer's turned off, is that right? I hope so, because I got alot of stuff (especially AMVs) that I gotta copy to CD-Rs that I haven't copied yet.

[RichLather]

If the power's off, there's not a thing that will happen to the computer. It'll just sit there, inert.

Sounds like you need a hell of a good scrubbing with anti-spyware and anti-virus software. Let me guess: you hadn't done it much, if at all, up until this point?

[RichLather]

Double post--you're not going to need a whole new computer, unless the current one is old and out-of-date, and you're thinking of using this trojan escapade to get a new PC out of the deal. At most, a new hard drive with a fresh OS install.

[RamonesFan2020204]

If the power's off, there's not a thing that will happen to the computer. It'll just sit there, inert.

Sounds like you need a hell of a good scrubbing with anti-spyware and anti-virus software. Let me guess: you hadn't done it much, if at all, up until this point?

Actually, I've done it a TON of times since yesterday afternoon, and I even tried a technique my brother told me about, and even that didn't work.

[RichLather]

If you know what trojan it is, try a Google search using its name. Sometimes there will be specially tailored removal procedures for specific viruses. I know that worked for me whn I had a nasty little piece of spyware that kept installing itself after repeated deletions.

Keep in mind that you're not the first to get infected in this way, and that chances are someone somewhere on this here Internet knows how to fix your problem.

[Jnzk]

I'm gonna be out of business for a while until I get a new hard drive or a new computer.

Don't buy a new hard drive just because of this. Even if all else fails, you can always format the old HD and reinstall everything.

[Kariudo]

well whatever you do, I think that this combo will help you prevent future infestations:
Avast! antivirus
Zone alarm
spybot search & destroy
Ad-aware
(if you don't already have these)
it takes time, and system resources, but it keeps your info safe.
in my experience, zone alarm has blocked a few hijack attempts, and the avast on-access scanner has stopped a few viruses, between the two spyware programs, I've killed thousands of spyware (mostly repeats)

if anybody has improvements/suggestions (that are free) I'd be glad to listen

[Qyot27]

well whatever you do, I think that this combo will help you prevent future infestations:
Avast! antivirus
Zone alarm
spybot search & destroy
Ad-aware
(if you don't already have these)
it takes time, and system resources, but it keeps your info safe.
in my experience, zone alarm has blocked a few hijack attempts, and the avast on-access scanner has stopped a few viruses, between the two spyware programs, I've killed thousands of spyware (mostly repeats)

if anybody has improvements/suggestions (that are free) I'd be glad to listen

Ad-Aware doesn't hurt either. And on top of those things, use Firefox or Opera as your browser. Make sure that your Immunizations in Spybot are always complete as well, and the definitions in that, Ad-Aware, and the Anti-virus are all up-to-date. If you do that regularly enough (i.e. every few days or weekly for a few months, and keep up on it), you won't have much of a problem.

[[Mike of the Desert]]

The same happened to me the last month.. I lose everything, since then I bought "Norton Internet Security 2006" (48$) with the last update, and since then, many trojan-viruses tried to infect my Hard Drive, being immediately recognized and destroyed. It's truly a powerful and useful program.

[RichLather]

Michele, where in hell are you surfing that is causing such an onslaught?