And that's all she wrote

My laptop is dead. Non-responsive. Can't recover with the Windows CD because it can't find my hard drive to run Setup. Every forum I've checked agrees it's a goner since it's running XP and the hard drive specs required some fancy fortwork by Compaq to make the thing work in the first place and isn't that a wonderful thing to find out.

My last backup was April 13th - with the exception of a quick snapshot of my own fic files last night. I've lost all the SV and SGA fic I've saved (and categorized) since the backup - which is a lot of files.

I have Gary's laptop for now, but when he returns this week, he'll obviously want it back, so I guess I'll be buying a new one since it's rediculously expensive to take it to be 'repaired'. It's not a huge expense since all I do is write in Word and check my mail and LJ, but it'll pinch since I'm disabled and not receiving any disability payments.

It's appalling what these malware producers can do to a system.

And I'm sick to my stomach every time I think of everything I've done for the last few weeks that's lost. At least all my completed fics and manips/icons are up on LJ and my website.

I'll just be over here feeling sorry for myself.

ETA: Some good news - I was able to manage a command prompt and pulled the files I wanted to keep onto my flash drive and they're all on Gary's laptop for now. Next up Ill buy the 32GB flash drive that will hold everything and back it all up, then I can breathe a little easier. Still need to either completely rebuild this laptop or buy a new one.

Malware creators SUCK!!!!

I am scrupulous in keeping my antivirus definitions up-to-date, I have my NAV scans scheduled and run them diligently, I don't click on random sites and I STILL ended up with a vicious Trojan installed. I've now spent almost 16 hours trying to get the damn thing cleaned off my laptop. I'm currently on Gary's looking up everything I can. Guess it's a good thing he's still off riding around the country. I have my writing backed up to my flash drive - including what I was working on when I detected the problem but, needless to say, I'm not feeling terribly inspired.

Do you know how many different anti-spyware/malware programs are out there? A lot - and none of them work on everything. The gurus have you run three or four of them to try to catch anything that falls through the cracks. Appalling.

I'm just hoping I don't have to do a full restore because I will lose at least some of my screencaps because an 8GB flash drive isn't going to hold everything and if I go out to buy another one then I'll expose myself to a different kind of virus and MY hard drive isn't as easy to clean. *sigh*

Malware creators SUCK!!!!

I am scrupulous in keeping my antivirus definitions up-to-date, I have my NAV scans scheduled and run them diligently, I don't click on random sites and I STILL ended up with a vicious Trojan installed. I've now spent almost 16 hours trying to get the damn thing cleaned off my laptop. I'm currently on Gary's looking up everything I can. Guess it's a good thing he's still off riding around the country. I have my writing backed up to my flash drive - including what I was working on when I detected the problem but, needless to say, I'm not feeling terribly inspired.

Do you know how many different anti-spyware/malware programs are out there? A lot - and none of them work on everything. The gurus have you run three or four of them to try to catch anything that falls through the cracks. Appalling.

I'm just hoping I don't have to do a full restore because I will lose at least some of my screencaps because an 8GB flash drive isn't going to hold everything and if I go out to buy another one then I'll expose myself to a different kind of virus and MY hard drive isn't as easy to clean. *sigh*