<p>I’ve been dealing with a nasty nasty virus for the past week and a half on my PC. I’ve been contemplating replacing said PC for a few months now and this might just be the last straw.</p>
<p>I get rid of the virus, then two days later, it’s back again… then I get rid of it… then 2 days later another virus is back… etc… I’ve even manually deleted it out of my registry with the help of hijackthis… it still comes back in a day or so…</p>
<p>Friend told me to create a bootable USB drive with a virus scanner on it that way I could run it before windows starts, because he said it sounds like it’s embedded in my root directory somewhere. Created a bootable USB drive but said computer refuses to boot from it. I’m going to try to create a bootable CD with the same software next. Said PC refuses to burn cd’s so I’ll have to find another way to do it.</p>
<p>Anyway, I did a virus scan and a restart and now all my files are seemingly gone. Literally. The only thing there is windows, my virus scanner, and that’s it. I did a system restore to 3 weeks ago and now the program icons came back, but my files are still MIA.</p>
<p>I googled this dilemna and I found a few things. One thing said it sounded like my username data could have been corrupted at the root level. However, when I boot into safe mode as an administrator, all the files are missing from there also.</p>
<p>I’m at a loss. I could just re-format the computer but then all my stuff is definitely gone. I’m thinking it’s probably still there but that my virus(es) are somehow blocking me from seeing it.</p>
<p>Have you tried restoring your computer to an earlier date - one before you had the virus? We have done that a couple of times when we got viruses that would not let us access our anti virus programs, and it worked well. It did not affect any of our files. (I don’t know if it would unhide files though - that is a new one to me).</p>
<p>The instructions to do a system restore for XP are here [How</a> to restore Windows XP to a previous state](<a href=“http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084]How”>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306084)
There are probably links for more recent OS
We could not get to any programs like that with the viirus we had (it told us every program was a virus), so did it a different way inolving starting the computer in safe mode - if you need instructions to do that I can post them (I have walked my son through it over the phone - it is not hard).</p>
<p>Try the restore first and if need be, unhide the files that got hidden.</p>
<p>Depending on your PC you may be able to restore it back to the factory image.</p>
<p>If that doesn’t do it then it’s about time to think about whether to save off all of the files you care about to another external drive/USB Drive or (better) two, and then consider doing a reformat and install Windows from scratch on your PC (assuming you have the original disks). But don’t do this unless you’re very comfortable doing it.</p>
<p>swimcats, first every single thing was gone, then I did a system restore to 3 weeks ago and then my programs came back but all of my documents were gone. Now i found all my documents, they were all hidden. I unhid them and now they are all back… </p>
<p>It didn’t have my files in normal mode nor in safe mode. </p>
<p>I have my photos and a few other things back ed to my external, I think I’m going to back up the rest of my stuff as well. This whole thing has me in such a bad mood it’s ben going on for weeks now. It would be wonderful if this computer allowed me to create a bootable cd or a bootable usb drive but apparently it doesn’t want to boot from either of those devices. it’s getting replaced very very soon.</p>
<p>dad2, they won’t be offended if I call them nerds. I’m an uber nerd myself but this virus is beyond even myself.</p>
<p>Yeah, I keep my important stuff on my external but now that I got my files back (at least for the moment) I’m going to try to back up some other stuff too. This is just a mess. It’s driving me up a wall.</p>
<p>We have back up drives. It always takes a near disaster to remind us to use the darn things. I really should get in the habit of doing it regularly.</p>
<p>lol, i certainly will. it’s doing a full system virus scan off a bootable cd right now… hopefully by virus scanning it before it loads windows it will kill whatever it is… this thing is vicious…</p>
<p>I unhid my files and most of them are visable now. I did a virus scan prior to windows booting and naturally it’s not finding anything. I figured by doing it that way it would be able to scan everything prior to windows having a chance to hide anything. I just don’t know.</p>
<p>this program found something called sheur3. I googled it and it says this causes all sorts of computer programs and that it always roots itself in your application data/documents and settings folders… which would make sense for why my crap keeps dissapearing. Hopefully this program can remove it ok!</p>
<p>Also read somewhere that it sometimes disgueses itself as an adobe file update to make its way onto your computer. Maybe that’s where it came from. If you guys get that pop up you may want to x it out and update directly from Adobe’s website or from within the program if that’s an option.</p>
<p>AVG Rescue CD. I had to burn it to a CD as an iso file and boot my computer to it… that way it does the scan before windows has a chance to load. The scan is still going. I guess we’ll see if this takes care of it or if it’s still there after it’s done.</p>
<p>The first one I tried was something called microsoft system sweeper and it found absolutely nothing at all. This program has found the virus as well as a bunch of other stuff.</p>