I lost all my personal files and msn capabilities on 2/3/06

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Guest

I turned my computer on around 6pm, and found that all of my personal
settings had been changed to a default, and that all my personal files had
either been deleted or hidden. I don't know what to do to correct this
situation, i tried running a symantic w32 blackmal removal tool, but it
didn't seem to work, what's worse, is that to do so, i disabled my system
restore...i tried in "safe mode", but the computer took me out of safe mode
before i could run the removal tool again...i'm horribly frustrated, can
anyone tell me what's going on and how i can fix this??
thanks in advance
 
shennie said:
I turned my computer on around 6pm, and found that all of my personal
settings had been changed to a default, and that all my personal files had
either been deleted or hidden. I don't know what to do to correct this
situation, i tried running a symantic w32 blackmal removal tool, but it
didn't seem to work, what's worse, is that to do so, i disabled my system
restore...i tried in "safe mode", but the computer took me out of safe
mode
before i could run the removal tool again...i'm horribly frustrated, can
anyone tell me what's going on and how i can fix this??
thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Before we consider a virus infection, to me it sounds like your profile may
have become corrupted. If you look in C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS, do you see
a profile with your user name? If so, it would then contain your documents
folders and desktop, favorites etc. If you get "Access Denied" on this
folder, look here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421 If the profile
folder becomes corrupted, Windows creates a new default profile... which has
all the default settings and no documents. If this is the case, you should
then try to determine why it became corrupted... it could indicate hardware
problems with your hard disk drive or memory, for example.

Back to suspecting an infection:
Is there something specific that is leading you to suspect you are infected
with Blackmal?

There is a worm going around called Kama Sutra/MyWife (and other names) that
is known to delete document files. There's some info here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/904420.mspx If you have
an up-to-date virus scanner, it should catch this. The actual number of
infections from this thing hasn't lived up to all the hype about it in the
media, but it is still worth investigating.
 
click on start, then click run, then
type: /scannow then click enter.
 
Before we consider a virus infection, to me it sounds like your profile
may have become corrupted. If you look in C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS, do
you see a profile with your user name? If so, it would then contain your
documents folders and desktop, favorites etc. If you get "Access Denied"
on this folder, look here: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421 If
the profile folder becomes corrupted, Windows creates a new default
profile... which has all the default settings and no documents. If this
is the case, you should then try to determine why it became corrupted...
it could indicate hardware problems with your hard disk drive or memory,
for example.

Back to suspecting an infection:
Is there something specific that is leading you to suspect you are
infected with Blackmal?

There is a worm going around called Kama Sutra/MyWife (and other names)
that is known to delete document files. There's some info here:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/904420.mspx If you
have an up-to-date virus scanner, it should catch this. The actual number
of infections from this thing hasn't lived up to all the hype about it in
the media, but it is still worth investigating.
Click to expand...

I hate to reply to my own post, but wanted to add a bit here...

If you do determine that you were affected by Kama Sutra/MyWife/Blackmal,
Microsoft does have some manual removal instructions here:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/encyclopedia/details.aspx?name=Win32/Mywife.E@mm#Recovery

As for the recovery of your files, this can be tricky. You can try using
some software such as this one:
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm The more your
system runs and writes to the disk after losing the files, the greater
chance there is of them being permanently overwritten. If these files are
critical, there are professional businesses that can recover your files with
pretty good success rates but they are costly.
 
phillip said:
click on start, then click run, then
type: /scannow then click enter.
Click to expand...

Please quote at least some of the original post for clarity. I realize
that you are enamored of the System File Checker, but this will not
help the OP at all. S/he should respond to Colin Nash's post with more
information for help.

Malke
 
If the problem with the Hardware Failure then only vendor will look into it.
But the problem with the File System then Use "File Scavenger" it will
recover all the files only problem is you have to pay for it.
 
Greetings,

the most powerful tool to recover erased files is imho Undelete (DOS).
It works really great and never ever failed me before. It's restore
algorithm is mighty indeed. The tool was able to bring back literally
all of the erased files. That should definately help you.

http://www.uneraser.com/
 
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