I had a massive scare yesterday. My computer refused to boot. This was disastrous. Like, on a scale of 1-10, it was a catastrophic 8. ‘Cos like all lazy creatures I hadn’t made a back up.
Everything was fine till about ten days ago. And then this ominous message about some Trojan horse started flashing on the screen. Pretty soon my pretty wall paper was gone, replaced by an ugly electric blue screen with an uglier yellow strip across it sporting an insidious, “Spyware detected on your computer.” I wasn’t wild about it. My Van Gogh replaced with this?
The message also suggested that I install and antivirus to get rid of the digital equine creature. I thought that was strange ‘cos I had some pretty kickass McAfee stuff, plus some AVG protection. Admittedly, the AVG 7.5 was a little antiquated and had been warning me about its imminent expiry for some time. I, of course, did little else about it other than murmur a something to the effect of ‘rest in peace.’ Come to think of it, AVG’s expiry coincided with the appearance of the Trojan horse. Am I being totally paranoiac, or is there a connection?
I would have done nothing about it, except the message about the Trojan horse irritatingly kept popping up every 20 seconds or so. So yesterday, when I read about AVG 8 freeware in the papers, I decided to download and install it. Only, once I installed the software, my computer refused to boot! Apparently Grisoft aren’t joking when they claim that AVG 8 is the securest anti-virus software. The software is so secure it refuses even the owner entry into the computer.
Anyway, after an anxious half hour, I restarted the comp in safe mode and uninstalled AVG 8. I can once again boot my comp normally but the problem about spyware and the Trojan horse persists. Any solutions?
The cover of my book!
Things that I generally do-
1. Login to your comp in safe mode with networking.
2. Download, install and run Spybot software. Its a freeware for spyware detection and deletion.
3. Restart comp. Login again in safe mode with networking.
4. Download, install and run AVG. Restart.
See if this works!
~Sookie
@Sookie, thanks! Wow! it does sound tedious though.
This one won’t be as tedious.
I bet even the best with computers would fumble with what Mr. Soozie has suggested.
This one won’t be as tedious.
I recently came across a similar problem. Here’s what i did:
1. I formatted my hard disk. The most easiest thing to do. Formatting will not only kill each n every virus out there (or in there), but it will also make your comp a lot more faster. Hire a guy to do it. He won’t charge you more than 500 rupees.
2. I realized that besides me, my sister used to frequent my comp a lot more. She used to download all kinds of wallpapers, graphics, themes for her N70 and more importantly media like songs, clips and videos. If you doing any of these, stop it at once. You never know what the heck you are downloading.
3. Update your AVG copy first thing after the formatting is done.
4. From my own personal experience, do not use more than one anti-virus softwares on your comp. They usually try and kill each other’s operation, and neither lets the other work properly. You get the drift?
At the end of the day, remind yourself that all a writer needs is a word-processor like MS Word.
Keep it simple.
Let me know if any of these tips helped you.
@Jay…thank you soooo much. That was real help! Am just saving my data and then it’s whitewash hard disk!
I have checked this post quite often since it has been posted to see if someone puts a solution. The thing that caught my eye was that I was referred to as a male
I hope your comp is feeling all better now…
@Mr. Sookie…my comp is still blue..cos I’ve just been on fire recently…creative juices flowing on my next novel and all that…so not doing anything right now that will put my comp out of commission even for a while..maybe I’ll debug it on a day when I’m up against a wall.
Maybe its good that your comp crashed so that you can go back to pen and paper writing mode. I had been to one of the oldest libraries in Europe at St. Gallen this weekend. Here one can find oldest edition of Bibles, lexicon etc copied by monks from the books carried by traveling priests. Interesting part here is that they had limited supply of ink, paper and other writing instruments and they had to chose the work to copy very carefully. Also, they had to do the copy work very methodically since making one mistake in a page was discarding that page and rewriting it again.
Now, one can hit backspace or delete key to discard words and continue working as if nothing has changed. Its like saying, everything has changed but nothing seems to be different.
Ms Sookie (Even you thought I was a guy
)
@Sookie..no, i didn’t…that was tongue-in-cheek:) As for paper and pen, it only works for me when I’m outlining a story.