Re: System Recovery?

First of all, Rock:

Thank you for the stern advice.

You are absolutely correct. I should have never put myself in such a
position.

I am more surprised than you were when I saw all the files here. It was
really strange. Everything is here.

There wasn't court documents or anything, just music, pictures, and my
website links. Nothing dire.

When I upgraded my Norton--and I did a final scan about 12 hours ago, you
wouldn't believe what I found: 3 Trojan Horse, 2 W32 Beagles, and 8 other
worms and viruses. It was like a roach infestation.

I will do as I'm advised and get make a report.

Thank you for all your advice, Rock.

And to you too, Andrew.

Regards,
Marcus

"Rock" wrote:

"pikespeak" wrote
Hello,
Hopefully I am succinct, and clear on what I am about to say.

Today, my system crashed, or I thought it did. I tried to boot my
computer in safe mode, because I wanted to remove a virus and reinstall
Norton Anti-Virus. Apparently, the worm or trojan disables Norton and
renders it unusable. On the Symantec website, I was told I had to
reboot in safe mode and turn off system restore until I removed the
virus with a removal tool provided by their website.

But when I tried to reboot, it didn't work, it wouldn't even let me go
into windows. The computer informed me, in a command prompt setting, to
either boot normally or go to last workable configuration. But Windows
wouldn't boot--AT ALL. Nor would it let me go into safe mode--NOTHING.

I went ahead and did a system recovery by pressing F10 before I boot. I
was informed that all my files would be deleted...especially since I
couldn't get into windows and I turned system restore off. Before I
rebooted. :(

The system restore worked and was able to get back into windows and I
thought everything was gone--all 50+GB of files and data...apparently
not. Most of the stuff is still here. I think all of it is. Even the
amount of space available is still the same number as before the system
recovery. I had two separate user profiles, and there is a folder with my
name
on it, but it says: "C:\Documents and Settings\ Marcus Young is not
accessible. Access is denied." I did a Norton Scan and I can see the
names of my files in that folder, that I cannot access. I see my
favourites and everything, plus it's still taking up the 30GB of memory
as it did before recovery. Those are my files. When I tried to set up
another profile to log in--I typed in my name and the icon that I had
put in there 2 months ago automatically came up.

Everything else is here and accessible--even my Emule programme and the
files I downloaded from that software that very morning.

How can I access my folder: Marcus Young? All my projects are in there.

You need to take ownership of the files and folders. See this link.

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421

At this point you are lucky. Normally a system recovery with an OEM
recovery process is a destructive one, and all data/programs are lost. It
even cautioned you about this, so it's surprising you can still see files.
Might be a good time to read up on exactly how the recovery process works
for your system

More importantly though, if the data is so important, why don't you have a
backup? You suffered a malware problem but there are any number of things
that can happen which lead to data loss. For example what if the hard drive
died?

Always have a full and complete backup of important data. This should be on
media external to the system. A 3 1/2 inch hard drive in an external hard
drive enclosure connected by USB, Firewire or eSata is a low cost backup
medium.

There are a variety of tools for backup. I suggest you get a drive imaging
program such as Acronis True Image Home, version 10 to image the drive(s) to
his external hard drive.

You should never have to face permanent data loss.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Last known good configuration
    ... > from registry problems in Windows XP Home Editon? ... and you'll load the Recovery Console ... appropriate windows folder if it's at a different location. ... Type the whole command in one line, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain)
  • Re: MS DOS computer startup
    ... I'm looking into Acronis True Image and because I have a lot of room on ... stored a Restore area of 979 MB for Windows. ... As far as you know, can recovery, from these files or from the ... You might also want to look into getting a drive imaging program to backup ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: System Recovery?
    ... But Windows ... I went ahead and did a system recovery by pressing F10 before I boot. ... You suffered a malware problem but there are any number of things that can happen which lead to data loss. ... Always have a full and complete backup of important data. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: unable to find backup files when I returned from Vista to XP
    ... I am running Windows XP home edition. ... "access denied" message rather than simply not displaying a folder tree. ... diversity of backup media. ... removed Vista I went to F: and actually READ some of these files. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Viewing registry on old drive
    ... >> The old drive is unreadable to Windows and to the ... >> old registry and import them to the new registry. ... Windows Explorer or Recovery Console, ... folders. ...
    (microsoft.public.win2000.registry)