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pwned by a virus
My computer got a virus last week. I was downloading an album on a Chinese website, it came in a zip file. After it finished downloading, I unzipped it, and my computer immediately crashed. I rebooted it, and it stuck at the window welcoming screen and froze. I rebooted it again and again and the same shit happened. In the end I have no choice but to reformat the computer. I lost a lot of stuff. I had over 100 gigs of music, movies, porns, games and pictures, now it's all gone. I should've burned them onto backup disks, but I never thought this would happened to me. I spent a lot of time hoarding all that stuff, and now it's all gone. This is almost like my house burning down, I'm so choked.:angry:
Comments
just on a side note... ppl who create viruses seriously don't have a life.. like really... don't you have anything else better to do than create misery?
OH NO NOT THE P0RNZ!!
i like how this is going to be the first candidate thread going towards fight club because of how offtopic it has been just to the mention of pron.
Then, get something like BartPE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/). Burn that to a CD (using another computer obviously), boot to that CD and poof! Instant Windows. Copy your files from the first to the second hard drive, or if you can't get a second hard drive, you could use this opportunity to transfer them to another computer (via network) or to backup CDs. Then you can reformat the original drive and you're all set.
Here's the really important part, even if you decide to ditch all your data and reformat, READ THIS PART! In fact, anyone else who has data they want to keep when they have to reinstall Windows, they should READ THIS!!
NOTE: If you bought another hard drive, you should still use the process below on the first Hard Drive, because you only really need less than 40GB for Windows+Your Apps (at a maximum). Then you will end up with 2 Partitions on the first hard drive, one for Windows and one for Data, and a whole second Data drive! (plus, if you keep most of your Data on the second drive, if the first one totally fails, you can just replace it and your data is OK!)
When you do reinstall Windows, tell it you want to create TWO partitions, make one about 10-20GB (or if you can spare it and you have a LOT of Games/Applications, make it bigger), call this one "Windows" (or something similar) and use the rest of the space for the other one, call it "Data" (or something similar).
Since I'm assuming your installing XP, this guide: http://www.petri.co.il/install_windows_xp_pro.htm has some pretty pictures. Once you get to the screen on step 7 of the guide just press 'C' and create a partition of about 10240 to 20480 MB (tip: take the number of GB you want and multiply by 1024, NOT 1000, so 10GB * 1024 = 10240MB). Then you should still have an "Unpartitioned Space" item, select it and press 'C' again and just use the default (which is the amount of space left).
Install windows on the "Windows" partition and when you boot up you'll have two drives: C and D. Install all your software to the C drive, but put all your music, documents etc. on the D drive. (You can even tell windows to move your My Documents folder there, just right click "My Documents" click Properties and go to the Location tab).
Now, if this happens again, when you reinstall Windows, just reformat and install it on your C drive. You lose all your Apps, but keep all your data
It sounds complicated but basically you're just splitting your one physical hard drive into 2 virtual hard drives, then you can just wipe out the Windows one to reinstall Windows but your Data is ok...I really wish more computer manufacturers would format their disks this way by default.
One last note: You should install an Anti-Virus first thing after reinstalling Windows (before using the internet, and certainly before using any of the files backed up from the old computer). Then scan and clean the backup files before you start using them.
(Sorry for the tome, but I tend to write a lot when its a subject I know all to well...I've had the same problem, but usually its because I was fiddling with hardware, rather than a virus)
And it is a PAIN. IN. THE. ASS. to change the drive letter afterwards.