Good move on being cautious! I try not to be paranoid, but internet “threats” are real. Any time that you get a pop-up from the internet (that is not a pop-up from your existing anti-virus)about a supposed virus, it is usually a virus itself in waiting. I have become diligent about backing up data (and backing up my back ups!LOL) and even “disk imaging” my operating system with imaging software. This is in preparation for the inevitable catastrophic virus or windows crash because by nature of the Windows operating system, it is truly (and unfortuneatly) inevitable. By the way, Acronis True Image is awesome and easy to use. I also use a good and lightwieght paid for anti-virus/anti-spyware program (Webroot) and then keep a few good free anti-spyware on the side to run on demand, not “real-time”. Oh, this is Ami’s husband, Rich. I am the guy in the house that makes sure that the computer keeps working for the family and the soon-to-be-known-inventor! Good luck and keep inventing!

This might just explain a lot. Does that Antivirus 2009 look like an official Microsoft product? I have had either a Microsoft or Internet Explorer(can’t really remember which one now) Virus warning keep popping up and it has been driving me crazy. I’ve been canceling and closing it, but it keeps coming back, even though my McAfee scan showed no problems.

Rich, thanks for the reminder. We have an external hard drive we use for backups, but I can’t remember the last time we actually did this. I’ll make sure we do that today and get on a regular schedule so we don’t have any problems.

No problem. Google this problem, there are many ways to remove them, ranging from manual removal (for the PC-literate) to free automatic methods. I recommend Malwarebytes free program. It is very thorough and easy. Just make sure you “quarantine” anything found as opposed to remove (if possible) since Malwarebytes is so thorough that it sometimes removes necessary files! You can always take something out of quarantine and put it back if needed. Also, I am particularly not fond of McAfee and Norton- they are “resource hogs” and I find that the newer and “lighter” programs respond better to todays computers and threats. Once again- Back up diligently! Good luck!

I just remembered- Don’t click on anything with these “virus” pop-ups. Any click (even the “cancel” or"no" may activate the install. They are persnickety and terrible.

Amen!
Norton and McAfee are horrible…(my opinion)….Whenever a friend calls me to help fix their locked up PC, they inevitably have one of those two…..there are better choices and your system will run faster, especially at power up….great point!..also, switching from explorer to firefox really minimized virus threats for me…

Thanks for the help. Clicking on the cancel when this problem was happening the other day just made things worse….seemed to cause a loop we had trouble getting out of….not sure what we did to finally stop it but luckily it did. We ran a full scan with our McAfee and I think that took care of the problem. As far as Norton goes, we had that a few years ago and had nothing but trouble, but since we switched to McAfee we have had absolutely no problem, until this pop-up thing started. Everything seems to be ok now, but at least I think I know what to do – or not to do – if it starts again. Thanks again for all the great advice.

There are two really bad viruses floating around over the last several weeks…..one is an email tilled “naked images of Sara Paylin”….it’s an .exe file and don’t open it, it could be a virus….

The other is also an email as well…but it’s entitled “Naked images of Hillary Clinton”….don’t open this one either..it could actually be naked pictures of Hillary Clinton……

That may have been from the joke thread a while back..not sure …but it’s funny.

I don’t have any issues with viruses right now, but I have been meaning to go out and get an external hard drive for backup purposes. Any guidance on what to get, how to do it, etc?

There are quite a few options and they are all basically good. just make sure it’s connection is compatable with your computer, USB, Firewire, RJ45, etc. and that the harddrive space is large enough so that your total storage needs used no more then 50% of the total harddrive space. Buy the most space that you are willing to pay for.

Also, instead of a “backup”, concider getting image software. Instead of putting your files in a separate place, Imaging software allows you to make a copy of your entire harddrive, so if do get an infection or fatal crash, you don’t have to load all your software, programs and data into the new harddrive, you’ll have a complete copy that you can just upload.

The key thing is to make sure you have a clean backup. Many people actually back-up their viruses that they are trying to avoid in the first place.

I say whatever you do…please have a back up system…try and back up all your files. Great advise everyone!!!!!!

Antivirus 2009 is considered as one of the widely spread and most successful rogue antivirus to date. It had infected vast number of computers around the world. Antivirus 2009 pretends to be a security application but crated primarily to sell the rogue security product by using unfair method of fake scanning and detection to assure the victim of its importance.

My father installed Antivirus 2008 on his PC and it took me hours to get it back to normal.

I know how you feel Eddie! Like your dad I too had to have someone fix my computer it was a mess. Thank God for my nephew who is a computer wizard.

Thanks for the information! The imaging software I’ve heard talked about before, but was really at a loss as to what it was or how it all “worked”. I had a hard drive failure almost 2 years ago now, not due to viruses, and was really wishing I had had that available to me. Upon getting the new hard drive installed and reinstalling everything from the OS on up…..I just haven’t been able to force myself to deal with getting all of my work “stuff” back up to par with special entries, shortcuts, etc. that it takes for me to move quickly – just avoiding it after spending nearly 2 months after getting the new hard drive dealing with new issues messing with that option and this option, Norton messing up my line-count software and freezing the computer, then the dual-monitor program changing its setup to no longer include whatI used it for, hours on end with the computer company, hundreds of dollars at a computer doctor, etc. that it’s purely psychological at this point, but I know I need to do it for this system as well. How DO you do this with a laptop? Is there a difference when it is a laptop? (I need to do both and get back in there and get the desktop up to speed again). Would somebody at Circuit City or Best Buy know how to help or make recommendations as to what I need? lol.

You might want to look into something like Norton Ghost or simular for want you’re looking to do…

http://www.symantec.com/norton/ghost

Acronis True Image software is so easy and it works. I have reinstalled my entire desktop (settings, software, Windows operating system- EVERYTHING) after a drive failure with this software. It is so much easier than “starting from scratch”. Check it out. If you have gone this far with the dreaded computer, this would be the logical step since I’m sure that you don’t want to go through that again. Crashes and drive failures are common and as I said in the earlier post, inevitable. Good luck and do it.

thanks for the info…I’m out of town, but when I get home, that’s it, I finally need to do something to protect my info..

Ami, how is Acronis better than say, getting a portable thumb drive? I bought one months ago, and have never used it because frankly, I’ve never backed up my computer and don’t know how! (I know, I know, I’m afraid it’s going to crash at any moment!)

I can answer that one.
A portable humb drive or even an external harddrive is hardware. It is another storage place. Those are great for being able to copy data for storage or backup. Thumbdrives are good for making copies of a few select files.

Acronis is not hardware. It is software used for backing up your data. If you just want to copy a few files or many files, you don’t need Acronis. What acronis does is make an exact copy of your entire computer harddrive. This includes all your operating system, your settings, your desktop, screensavers, everything. An inportant note to realize is that a computer will not let you copy a file that is in use, so basically, just by starting your computer, all the startup data cannot be copied. Any programs in use cannot be copied, and none of your boot-up settings which make your computer “yours”, cannot be copied. For most people, this is extremely difficult to get everything back to how they want it. Acronis, if it is like all other imaging software, creates a separate start-up option in the boot up. When you start your computer, Acronis starts your computer without using any of your other computer software. This now allows you to make a copy of your entire computer harddrive. If you should have a crash, either partial, from a virus or other software alteration, or a complete loss from a harddrive melting, all you would have to do is relace the harddrive, load Acronis, and then load your backup file. Everything is now back from your old harddrive. There may be a few “click through” settings because of different hardware, but that’s about it.
When I worked for a computer support company, we used imaging software when we were setting up multiple computers. Instead of setting up 30 computers individually, we set up one computer to company specs, and then imaged that to the other 29 computers. I also used imaging on the guest computers at the hotel. These were open to public use and would make it about 2 weeks until they were crashed. I would just plug in my external harddrive, and load up the original harddrive.

So, to make a long answer even longer, an external harddrive or thumbdrive is good for copying selected files, imaging software is a tool to make sure you copy everything, easily.

O.k., now I get it! Thanks, Mark, for clarifying.

I just had an IT company do my server and a bunch of desk tops…cost me about 5K to recover everything after a power spike. Now we have EVERYTHING backed up every night and UPS’s on every computer..I’m a little poorer but I sleep better.

You can get a simple UPS at wal-mart for about $30.00 and it will save you from a power related hardware failure like we had.

“…make an exact copy of your entire computer harddrive. This includes all your operating system, your settings, your desktop, screensavers, everything.”

From the sound of Chrissy’s posting…This is exactly what she’s wanting to do. Saving just your folders and files is fine, but then you’ll still have deal with reinstalling your Operating System (most don’t have the restore disc to begin with) and all your other programs and settings you had on your original machine if using that option.

With the entire harddrive being ghost’d/cloned, you can reinstall your complete machine, OS, settings, files, folders all in one shot…As oppose to the above mentioned.

my husband suggested i use MOZY?

ps on another forum i belong to, a woman said she mistakenly opened the Antivirus 2009…she said it looked convincing, just like i thought….scary to think i was just a click away from serious problems…

another virus out there are emails from ‘Hallmark cards’….another virus….don’t open those either…

This is another good online backup alternative…

http://www.carbonite.com/

I lost EVERYTHING in 2001. Didn’t know to backup my files, I had no idea the entire computer could just shut off, lock me out. I didn’t upload data from the web – thought I was safe. No so much. The only stuff I still had were a few pages I happened to print.

I still do not know what happened. My daughter is using that particular computer now – but the loss was devistating. Do what you need to do to protect yourself.

UPS/FedEx Delivery Failure Virus Alert…
http://www.snopes.com/computer/virus/ups.asp

eddie, thanks : )

Eva, I opened "Hallmark"cards!!! So far, I think I’m o.k., I’m running my anti-virus right now!!!

Yes, Eddie, that was what I was talking about. There is so much on my computer for the work I do to increase speed/production, etc. Thousands of things. I’ve backed those types of specific files up, but the transfer doesn’t always work – macros usually without a problem, but dictionary things and quick corrects/autocorrects, not always, and not always correctly. Thanks for all of the information…didn’t mean to look like I was ignoring this thread…..took me a bit to find it on the boards today. lol. So when one hard drive fails – you just take it out and completely install the one you had used for backup so that all is well again? Or do you just buy another hard drive and copy the external hard drive info back onto the new one?

Well, there are several options available, one of which you’ve already mentioned here regarding the external harddrive option.

Another option would be to install a secondary internal harddrive and use it primarily as your Backup drive. So, if you do experience a primary harddrive failure, then you can just pickup where you left off from the Backup drive. There would be particularly no down time with this option.

Or you can use an offsite service such as Carbonnite which is an online Backup service and costs $49.95/year.

I’d have to check into whether or not offsite services are HIPAA compliant and the implications for me for using one. The external hard drive sounds like my best bet – just letting lack of knowledge hold me back from moving forward with it.

Well, there are several options available, one of which you’ve already mentioned here regarding the external harddrive option.

Another option would be to install a secondary internal harddrive and use it primarily as your Backup drive. So, if you do experience a Master harddrive failure, then you can just pickup where you left off from the Backup drive. There would be practically no down time with this option. Technically, these 2 options are the same, so, whichever one is easiest for you would be fine.

Or you can use an offsite service such as Carbonnite, which is an automatic online Backup service and costs $49.95/year. But from what I understand of this service is that it does not backup your entire PC, just your files.

I’m feeling pretty pleased with myself.

I was looking for a way of backing up my stuff-not the system,and was considering an external harddrive.

I already had an extra internal harddrive,and what I was doing was opening up the computer and plugging and unplugging it to keep it isolated when not in use,using it as a back-up storage unit.
That was a bit of a pain.
So,I had one of those little moments,went into device manager,and found I could disable it with a click[and enable it with a click],and isolate it until I needed to backup again and then,click,disable it.
I used Windows explorer to copy the recent stuff to the backup.

God,that was great.

I LOVE those little discoveries. lol. With my older dual-screened monitor, the software company that ran those dual screens the way I needed to have them configured discontinued the part I needed. I couldn’t get anyone to figure it out…computer stores, Dell, etc. I didn’t even touch that computer for a year, as I had given up. When I came back to it, I fixed it all by myself with one of my discoveries and thought “Well, how ’bout that?!” Still trying to forget about the $230 I spent paying someone else to figure out the issues. lol.

We use “avast” on our network – it’s the bomb – they offer a free home edition as well that is better than all other av products combined.