Friday 1 July 2011

An apology

I am duty bound to offer an apology to all readers for the lack of posts yesterday and today. It would seem that I have been subjected to the type of attack suffered by Ian Parker Joseph a few weeks ago, except in my case the attack implanted a 'scam MS programme', under the pretext of being a free firewall service, one which completely blocked every file and programme on my system, preventing access.

Being unable to remove this in 'safe mode' - and not having any IT knowledge other than how to use the damn thing - I resorted to returning the lap top to the manufacturers original "factory" settings. Coupled with being out all day it has meant posting has been light. I intend spending this evening restoring those programmes I was unable to save, consequently I bid all a very early good night and will return to normal output the morrow.

Mind you, the upside of all this is that I'm extremely pleased to have upset someone - and yes, I know who sent it - although I refuse to 'state' the source............

7 comments:

Andrew said...

Congratulations :)

microdave said...

I hope you have your important documents regularly backed up on an external drive?

I also keep copies of all the programme install files, as these can be replaced with newer versions (which aren't always better!), or in some cases get withdrawn completely.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

A: Thank you

dm: backup? Unfortunately, no..... Oops!

subrosa said...

WfW, no backup? Jings even I have an external backup drive. :) Hope it all goes well for you. I wouldn't know where to start.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

SR: Live and learn, don't we?

Actualy taking it back to manufacturers factory settings is a piece of cake (control panel) but time consuming though.

microdave said...

What I do is partition the hard drive, and have all my documents on a different section to the operating system and programmes. Unless the drive fails completely, or you get a really nasty bug, it's straightforward to restore the first partition and not disturb the second at all.

This does normally require a genuine O/S disc or discs, which I'm fortunate to have. The other common alternative is to use an "Imaging" programme to take a snapshot of your drive (when everything is running fine), and keep it somewhere else. In an event such as you describe, it's very easy to overwrite the corrupted installation with your copy.

The second option would be a good choice for you as there is no risk of loosing the (hidden) restore partition which you've just used. These can all be carried out with freeware programmes, and others can be set to do regular back-ups of the all important documents.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

md: And if you would like to email me, whilst retyping that in English I would be really grateful!