Well, that sucked (computer crashed)

So I get an update to AVG 8.0 (free antivirus program). Soon after it installs, it finds a file it says is infected. So I remove the suspect file to the vault and find that trashed my network connection. No big deal, I think. I'll use the system CD to repair it. Well, that process choked and then I could even load Windows. Now I'm beginning to get concerned. So I boot into safe mode and I still have a little functionality. Backup? What's a backup?

Off to Costco. Return home with a 250GB external hard drive (and $90 lighter in the wallet) and start backing up files. Ten hours later, I'm reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling everything from scratch.

It sucks, but in some weird way it's kinda cool to start over. System seems a little faster too.

The external drive is a cute little thing too. Totally powered from the USB port.

I love the "fresh" system. It tends to get rid of crap that is slowing you down considerably. I like to think there is a special corner of hell dedicated to hackers & virus writers.....

I dont have to worry about this stuff...

:P

I have a tightly run router, but I had to take my laptop outside my home network and must have picked up a worm. ZoneAlarm was blocking lots of outbound traffic and AdAware 2007 cleaned off a downloader virus. I think that was it, as ZA keeps it from downloading even more stuff which would mean a reinstall very soon.

Edit: It appears clean after 2 AA passes and 1 SB S&D pass, plus monitoring netstat -af of every port on my machine via command line with netstat -b via Admin mode to see what programs are running the outbound links.

I guess I had a Firefox hijack in the process. My home page was changed to Windows Live, and even after cleaning that virus, there was always a connection into MSN to some ****video.ca with another IP within MSN. I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox and now it is gone on netstat -af. I would expect my IE7 is not compromised and a reinstall may be prudent sooner than later when I have the time.

Usually 18 months, optimally, though with defragmenters and other gear, I'll let it hold out until it's unbearable.

Thankfully, I've had virtually no reactivation hassles; only when having to call having said I replaced the system board and all that...

as shipped from Gateway without a format. Just Zone Alarm, AVG, and AdAware/Spybot to protect me.

The OEM install of Vista Home Premium was entirely fucked, so I did a wipe and reinstall on my relatively new machine (it's a Gateway, too). But hey, with a 2.4 gig quad core processor, 500 gig SATA II hard drive, and 3 gigs of dual-channel DDR2 all for the grand total of $600 I'll live with it! :)