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  • a virus formatted my computer help!

This should probably be in the virus section but since it's for articles only...
A couple of days ago as i turned my computer on , it formatted itself. Iam guessing itwas a virus, but which one? and how does it operate? My norton 2004 was always uptodate.
Anyone can help me with this?
Could it possibly have been possibly caused by other than a virus?
This might sound weird, but its been hell lot of time i haven't heard of viruses spreading around but only worms or trojans. And the second one is the most likely...
Anyway good luck and sorry for what happened
samer i didn't even have the service pack 1 (try downloading on a modem and you'll commit suicide) installed and no all the data got lost...
i have service pack 2 on a CD. :)
hmmmm same here it's much better than sp1 but needs lot of memory
3 months later
It's a virus alright. Can't remember the name though. My advice to you is thins. Lose Norton. It sucks. Just commercial. Everyone knows the program but no one knows how bad it is. In a comparison test, a group of programmers proved that their newly free established antivirus caught viruses Norton never did. I'll get back to you on the name later. Anyhow, need real protection, go for Panda Platinum Internet Security 2005. That pack has everything. If it's one thing I value, it's an alternative. Trust me. Panda is ace. Peace out!
all in one packs are never perfect, but they are good to provide the minimum security you need.
hello cyber girl
I have a small software that I use to recover data in such cases. You can recover a lot of your data, but it is very important that you do not work on the formatted hard disk. Any work you do on that disk (especially reinstalling windows) will reduce the amount of recoverable data.

So what this is what you have to do to recover the maximum amount of data:
-Tell me if you still need help and I'll point you to a page where you can download a small 2mb software that I use for recovery. I'll proveide the key for the software. I know it's illegal but hey, we're in lebanon
-Because you cannot boot anymore on the infected disk and cannot reistall windows, you'll have to boot on another disk. What I usually do is remove the disk that I want to recover and put it on another PC as second hard disk, Then boot this computer, scan the infected disk for viruses, then launch the recovery software and recover the data.
But it is VERY IMPORTANT in this case to have an up-to-date antivirus on the computer on which you'll do the recovery, or else the virus from the infected disk will infect the non-infected disk (pardon my english!) and you'll have 2 problems instead of one.

Damn, I am posting on a 4 month old thread.
small 2mb software that I use for recovery.
could you please PM me the name or post it here :) ?
It is called rstudio.
5 months later
rstudio needs to be runned from within windows .... that is in case u have another HDD with a working windows on it and connected the formated as a slave. In case u didn't, u need a Bootable CD that comes full with it's OS and it's recovery tools, Plenty of em available online ..... pick what suites u best