# Computer dead, lost only a couple pages of a new rewrite.



## SeverinR (Aug 17, 2012)

Watching a Youtube trailer 
Virus alert popped up,
Clicked delete virus,
Computer shut down and only has a cursor blinking on a black screen, keyboard locked.

SInce lightning killed my last computer, I have made a point to save most work to my email account.
So only a few pages of a rewrite from a early story I wrote, was lost.

Will be a while before I can get a new one.  Would have really been upset to loose everything.

Invest in a quality virus scan. AVG and Norton missed this one.


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## Butterfly (Aug 17, 2012)

Those random virus popups are usually trojan viruses, don't trust them and don't click them... use your own scanner installed on your comp instead to check. I say this from learning the hard way.


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## Steerpike (Aug 17, 2012)

A couple of things that might help:

1) If you use Dropbox and write in a program that autosaves often, you can help yourself out even after something like this; and 

2) If you use Linux for writing, you'll find that the number of viruses that affect it is extremely low.

Also, if you need to access files on that hard drive, you might burn a linux LiveCD (linux mint for example) if you have a computer you can use to download and burn it. Then, when you boot the liveCD you can pull up the hard drive with your Windows installation on it and access all of the files saved there. I don't know how many times I've recovered files for people using a linux liveCD when Windows went kaboom.


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## Butterfly (Aug 17, 2012)

Some cheeky monkey stole my brand new laptop in a break in once, and I lost a lot. Now I have several regularly backed up flashdrives hidden in various places, just in case, like.


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## Steerpike (Aug 17, 2012)

I have some backup drives as well, but Dropbox has been awesome for me, particularly as I write on three different computers.


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## Sheilawisz (Aug 17, 2012)

I am so sorry that this happened to you, Severin =(

What I do is that I burn all the important stuff into CDs, and I also email my Fantasy novels to myself and I keep them safe inside my email account. I am happy that you did not lose too much information...

So, are viruses like that very common in Youtube?


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## Amanita (Aug 17, 2012)

I'm suffering from a similar problem. After getting the last windows updates, my laptop doesn't work anymore. I hope it can be repaired, but if not, all my planning will be lost. (I've sent the actual stories to a friend who can send them back.) Was feeling too secure because it has been working without problems for three years now and didn't make back-up copies of anything. Now there are many things I'm missing, including the materials and learning plan for my chemistry exam. So I didn't remember what I had planned for today. The plan is lost but I could regain the materials because their accessible online, but my netbook is so awfully slow, I'll only do it if I don't get the laptop back tomorrow. Earlier this evening, it needed three hours for new windows updates. Really annoying this is.
Maybe Windows found out that I encouraged Sheila to get an Apple and now they want to destroy me. 

More seriously, maybe I did get the same virus from You Tube, I'm using it quite often myself. If this is the case, it might actually be good that my netbook doesn't manage to display videos.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Aug 17, 2012)

Steerpike said:
			
		

> I have some backup drives as well, but Dropbox has been awesome for me, particularly as I write on three different computers.



Another vote for Dropbox..... Simple, effective, and accessible from any computer.


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## Steerpike (Aug 17, 2012)

Amanita - burn a linux liveCD and you can at least access the files on your Windows hard drive, before you have to format or reinstall or anything.


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## Penpilot (Aug 17, 2012)

Computer hardware may not be ruined. Could be just your operating system corrupted. Files may still be there. Take it to someone who can pop the hard drive and retrieve files and reinstall the OS. Hopefully you have a friend that can do this. 



Butterfly said:


> Some cheeky monkey stole my brand new laptop in a break in once, and I lost a lot. Now I have several regularly backed up flashdrives hidden in various places, just in case, like.



A little tip I learned. If you have an old broken laptop, leave that out in the open as bait and stash your newer one. Laptops are easy smash and grabs. Don't leave them in plain site.


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Aug 17, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> A little tip I learned. If you have an old broken laptop, leave that out in the open as bait and stash your newer one. Laptops are easy smash and grabs. Don't leave them in plain site.



I solve this problem by not owning a laptop. It's very convenient! 

For my part, I have a daily cron at 04:00 that backs up an encrypted tar.bz2 of my entire document repository (svn repo) to a remote host, and I go and prune old copies once a month. There are more automated solutions but none of them have the transparency that I really wanted.


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## Steerpike (Aug 17, 2012)

Cron jobs are only for *nix systems, right?


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## Benjamin Clayborne (Aug 17, 2012)

Colloquially, "cron job" just means any recurring scheduled automated task on a computer. More precisely, crond is the "cron daemon" which is a system-level service usually found on Unix variants and their ilk, including Linux. (Which is what I'm using.)

Most OSes have some sort of task scheduling system, of course.


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## Steerpike (Aug 17, 2012)

Ah...ok, thanks. I use linux as well, and had never heard of cron jobs until I starting using it.


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## Graylorne (Aug 18, 2012)

Not Dropbox, Sugar Sync here. First 3 gb free, that's plenty. I use 2 pc's and a laptop and it's perfect. Ofc I also have a external hd with a back-up copy for you-never-know.


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## Butterfly (Aug 18, 2012)

Penpilot said:


> A little tip I learned. If you have an old broken laptop, leave that out in the open as bait and stash your newer one. Laptops are easy smash and grabs. Don't leave them in plain site.




Now the main question that pops to mind is... Am I allowed to electrify it via the mains, or not, I mean just as an alarm like?

Luckily though, it was covered on insurance so was replaced pretty quickly.


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## SeverinR (Aug 27, 2012)

Thanks, 
I email documents to myself, and this is where my world is.
Until I get a new computer, I can only access at work.
My daughters computer doesn't have MS word of any kind, I can access them, but can't open them.

Funny, I started writing at work, when I decided to teach myself to type faster. I did the typing test, then decided to start writing stories, and then I decided that I liked my books, and that I might want to publish, so writing the book at work became unethical.


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## Penpilot (Aug 28, 2012)

Why don't you just use Google Docs? You can access from anywhere as long as you have internet and a web browser.


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## Butterfly (Aug 28, 2012)

Errr.... All you Dropbox users might want to read this, and double check that you're covered.

Magical Words


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## Steerpike (Aug 28, 2012)

Butterfly said:


> Errr.... All you Dropbox users might want to read this, and double check that you're covered.
> 
> Magical Words



Interesting. I've been using Dropbox for years now, across Windows and Linux computers, and never had an issue where it failed to backup. It wouldn't surprise me if the user did something inadvertently, like turn off the program (it runs in the background and that's how it knows when to sync). It is a good cautionary tale, though. Whenever you move a file to Dropbox, the little icon on your computer will show that it is syncing and give you a check mark when it is done. I always glance at it. You can also log directly into the Dropbox web site and make sure your files are there if you're really worried that they didn't sync.

There are a couple of alternative programs that basically do the same thing, and I've thought about looking into those if they have linux support. Google Docs is a good idea as well, except that I dislike writing in Google docs so I don't use it unless I'm just importing files I wrote in another program.


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## T.Allen.Smith (Aug 28, 2012)

I always manually move the working file over to Dropbox at the end of each writing session. It takes ten seconds to do so.


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## SeverinR (Aug 29, 2012)

Tried to look up dropbox, Sugar sync, or just cloud, won't let me access them on my work computers.


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## SeverinR (Aug 30, 2012)

Downloaded Drop box,
didn't play with it though.
Almost forgot, so I downloaded it, made sure it loaded properly, tonight I will do the tutorial and mess with it.

Probably can't move my work, since the computer I am using is old and has no MS office program. Not sure if I downloaded the files onto the computer then "dropped" them if they would still be workable word documents or not.


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## Cleio (Aug 31, 2012)

Google drive is an alternative to Dropbox as well now. 

Dropbox saved my PhD dissertation on more than one occasion. I've never relied on it exclusively though. I also used to email regular drafts to myself, and had various copies on my husbands computer as well as at least to external hard drives. There is no such thing as being to paranoid about keeping your work backed up.


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## SeverinR (Sep 13, 2012)

Might be able to reload OS and get my computer working.
Sounds like the virus wipes the OS.

Will not use AVG again.


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## Aosto (Sep 13, 2012)

If the OS isn't a total loss, you may be able to access the underlying file system access any important data. It would involve obtaining a live cd of your favorite linux system. (I use Backtrack personally) and mounting the OS within linux. 

But if it destroyed the OS, then i'm not sure if you can get to the files.


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## SeverinR (Sep 13, 2012)

Don't really care about the lost stuff, like I said, most of it was backed up.
So if replacing the OS works I would be happy.
Much rather have two working computers rather then two worthless decorations on the desk.

Of course, I have to find a OS to load, and most computers don't come with those anymore.

"Just click on reset factory settings" reboot. That might work if there was anything left in the computer to reboot with.


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## Steerpike (Sep 13, 2012)

Aosto said:


> If the OS isn't a total loss, you may be able to access the underlying file system access any important data. It would involve obtaining a live cd of your favorite linux system. (I use Backtrack personally) and mounting the OS within linux.
> 
> But if it destroyed the OS, then i'm not sure if you can get to the files.



Yeah, this works great if you do want access to the files on the drive. I use Crunchbang Linux, and I've used the liveCD to save files for other people on numerous occasions.


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## SeverinR (Oct 11, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> A couple of things that might help:
> 
> 1) If you use Dropbox and write in a program that autosaves often, you can help yourself out even after something like this; and
> 
> ...



My brother got me a Linux OS dvd, would not load.  When I get a working computer I am strongly considering going Linux.


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## Aosto (Oct 11, 2012)

I use a WUBI install of Ubuntu, I didn't want to get rid of Windows just yet, but I haven't booted to it for a few weeks. Also, i'm way to lazy to get my wife's pictures off of windows.
If the DVD didn't boot, make sure your BIOS settings are set to boot from CD/DVD drives. LiveCD's are easier to boot from most of the time, but you can also try a USB boot, but that requires additional mucking with the BIOS settings.


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## Steerpike (Oct 11, 2012)

Aosto....if you don't like Unity you can install Cinnamon on Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10. Works great. Just an FYI.


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## Aosto (Oct 11, 2012)

I've been thinking about it. The program bar takes up to much real estate, even on my 22''. As someone who does 3D design, screen real estate is a must.


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## Steerpike (Oct 11, 2012)

Aosto said:


> I've been thinking about it. The program bar takes up to much real estate, even on my 22''. As someone who does 3D design, screen real estate is a must.



You can autohide it if you like. Cinnamon runs a bit faster on my older computer so I went with it. I like it.


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## SeverinR (Oct 11, 2012)

Will any of the data sites mentioned work with Linux? 
Crunchbag I see works.


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## Aosto (Oct 11, 2012)

A quick search turns up that Dropbox does have a linux option. I haven't personally tried it. Note, however, that Ubuntu does have it's ubuntu one service, free, allowing 5GB of cloud storage. You can automatically upload folders to it, I use it in conjunction with Google Drive and Dropbox.


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## Steerpike (Oct 11, 2012)

Crunchbang has a script you can run from their menu that will automatically install Dropbox. It is a good, fast linux distribution with a minimal desktop environment (OpenBox). For Ubuntu and other related distributions, you can download Dropbox from the Software Center and it will go through the installation for you. It also works well. I prefer it to Ubuntu One because I can more readily sync across various devices and platforms.


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## SeverinR (Oct 12, 2012)

just to update,
Removed hard drive and ran several of the programs on LInux Cd, 
loaded to a point then stopped, some to a blank screen, some ended with error.

I assume the virus made changes outside the hard drive.  
Definately going Linux with next computer.


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## Steerpike (Oct 12, 2012)

Severin:

What Linux distribution did you use? Once booted into Linux you can just access files and copy them. You don't need to run any programs.


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## SeverinR (Oct 12, 2012)

Never booted up.
My brother(the Linux lover) bought a magazine with the disc in it.
I will try to write down the linux cd name.  Might be on over the weekend, if not won't be back to a computer until monday.


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## Steerpike (Oct 12, 2012)

SeverinR said:


> Never booted up.
> My brother(the Linux lover) bought a magazine with the disc in it.
> I will try to write down the linux cd name.  Might be on over the weekend, if not won't be back to a computer until monday.



OK, feel free to share if you like. It's up to you. I can probably recommend a distro that will boot if your computer is set to boot from CD. Sometimes you have to bring up a boot menu or go into the BIOS and make sure the CD drive is set as one of the boot options, or it will simply never try to read the disk.  Sounds like it read it in your case, but failed to boot.


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## SeverinR (Oct 14, 2012)

Steerpike said:


> OK, feel free to share if you like. It's up to you. I can probably recommend a distro that will boot if your computer is set to boot from CD. Sometimes you have to bring up a boot menu or go into the BIOS and make sure the CD drive is set as one of the boot options, or it will simply never try to read the disk.  Sounds like it read it in your case, but failed to boot.


I am writing from a linux working laptop, tried the other laptop and it worked.
Its "full disro extravaganza

What Linux word processor works most like MS word? inexpensive would be great.  I can get MS office for 19.99, but I can't get reduced prices on other programs.


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## Steerpike (Oct 14, 2012)

LibreOffice is free and is probably the best in terms MS Office-like software.


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## SeverinR (Oct 19, 2012)

computer fooled me.
Running linux from dvd only. 
Did not load.
So I have a dumb terminal with no hard drive.
I can use the net, but can't save anything. 
I can load pictures to upload on the net, but if I shut down I think they are gone.
Better then nothing, but not ready to write again.


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## Steerpike (Oct 19, 2012)

You should still be able to mount the hard drive and save to it. Once the DVD is up and running there should also be an option to install the OS to the hard drive.


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## SeverinR (Nov 5, 2012)

Mounting a hard drive, isn't that illegal? :0

The hard drive in both computers are damaged/corrupted.  The better one will start to load then error out and will not even run from DVD. This one the DVD will bring it up, but will not load.
Nothing in the "setup" section will work. Unable to change any settings.

Have found a desktop with dual OS Windows XP(prof)/linux (same one the computer is runnning from DVD) UR-something.) for 50 with more mem and larger hard drive then better laptop, or could spend $50 to see if I could get the laptop fixed. Better on limited budget to go for the known.  
I will use linux for surfing, and Windows XP to use microsoft office. Hoepfully next payday.


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## Steerpike (Nov 5, 2012)

Severin:

You might also look at Peppermint OS, which is a free linux distro centered around the cloud. If you have internet connectivity, then you can work with cloud apps such as Google docs. Of course, you can do that with any distro, but Peppermint is focused on it.

Also, in the same way you create a live CD to boot linux, you can use a free program called unetbootin to create a live USB stick that is bootable (assuming your computer can boot from USB), and then it will load up just like the linux Live CD except that the live USB can reserve space for you to save files.

I agree for $50 you might as well buy the one you know works then try to fix the laptop if the problem is unknown. If you "know" it is a hard drive failure in the laptop, though, that's easy to fix if you buy a replacement drive.


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