[blueblue]

My OS is Win 7 Starter. Essexboy hasn't replied to me yet; if he wants me to get OTL and the other programs, to be sure I'm clean, I'll gladly do it. Meanwhile, I'm still rebuilding, have to get the programs I had before. Everyone I talk to who knows about how viruses work are saying the virus would only be on the file(s) it's targeted at, and I think they said the backup drives would be OK and my personal files, but just in case, I'd rather just start fresh. I got FF, a few plug-ins, and need to get a few programs I had from this site. I had rebuilt the system a few days ago but needed to tweak it a bit before getting back here.

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Hi, I want you to know that Essexboy has done a wonderful job helping me. All seems to be OK at the moment, I fixed a few problems on my own that I was having, and he made sure all my services were working properly, he also said something about what my friend said about SP1.

He hasn't asked me to run OTL yet, only something to fix a few other problems with the registry. I'd still like to be sure my system is clean, but it looks like we're getting close to resolving the issue and although it took awhile, my computer is probably OK.

I hope the reformatting undid whatever went wrong. Although Win 7 made it easy, I hope I never have to do it again.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH for sticking with me!

[blueblue]

Hi, I want you to know that Essexboy has done a wonderful job helping me. All seems to be OK at the moment, I fixed a few problems on my own that I was having, and he made sure all my services were working properly, he also said something about what my friend said about SP1.

He hasn't asked me to run OTL yet, only something to fix a few other problems with the registry. I'd still like to be sure my system is clean, but it looks like we're getting close to resolving the issue and although it took awhile, my computer is probably OK.

I hope the reformatting undid whatever went wrong. Although Win 7 made it easy, I hope I never have to do it again.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH for sticking with me!

[rshaffer61]

No problem and I am very glad to hear things are progressing so well. Hopefully by the time he finishes with you everything will be running top notch again.

[blueblue]

I hope we can be sure the problem's solved.

I just checked that thread and he hasn't replied yet, which is OK, I don't expect him to be waiting around on the net all day, so I hope he's having a fun day.

[rshaffer61]

Essexboy is one of the most dedicated Malware techs I have had the pleasure to work with. He for the most part has assisted with the 5 systems I have in my house and has always proved that he knows what he is doing. Real life though will pull us away so don't lose confidence in his ability to help. He will return and he will figure this out with our help if needed.

[blueblue]

Don't worry, I haven't lost confidence in him. Most people have a life beyond their computer, I know.

I do need to ask him something though, because something strange happened that I just noticed- my clock went way off, there's no reason that should happen, so I'm very suspicious; I'll ask him and hope he responds soon.

[rshaffer61]

Windows time or bios time?
This may indicate a failing cmos battery. You can ask the question and he will get it when he returns.

[blueblue]

Hi, my case is resolved so he closed the thread.

I didn't see your question till after. As far as I know it's the clock, it seems to be OK now, I reset it and rebooted, he asked me if it was still OK and it was. I will be paying closer attention to it for awhile to make sure it's not off again, and if it is I'll be worrying about it so I hope it's really OK, so far, so good.

[rshaffer61]

Once you turn the system off try disconnecting power from it for a night. Then in the morning reconnect and restart. Is date and time good then? If so then yes it could have just been a hiccup. Glad to see you are doing better now.

[blueblue]

That's what I did the night before it happened, had it unplugged, because we were expecting a thunderstorm and I unplugged everything. When I got back online the next afternoon, I noticed the clock was way off but that never happened before, and I have unplugged it whenever a storm was predicted, with no problem, only change was sometimes the modem would reset the IP address.

Resetting the clock worked fine, then I saw the note from Essexboy, he had asked if I reset it and if the clock kept the time after rebooting, so I rebooted to see if it was still on time, which it was, so I reported back that all was well. He said it happened to him once, but it seemed to be OK and never happened again after resetting it.

I have a lot of questions about how things work, so I've been looking up some info to refresh my memory, especially about how computer viruses work, because I'm concerned about my personal files, other machine, and backup drives, including thumb drives. Essexboy, and my friend, say my personal files should be OK, but according to what I read, depending on what I had, even those files could be infected. This would mean all my backups are infected, too. Being we never knew exactly what I had, it's still a mystery to me. I told my friend I'd send him some pics and asked him to scan it with Norton, which he has. He said Norton detected the virus in SP1, though it couldn't get rid of it. He has the trial version, but wants to buy it if he can.

I'm so afraid to put any of my backup drives on here though, but I might send him one of the thumb drives.

I don't know what to do. I remember finding and cleaning the infected files on the drives, too, and on this machine, but that was for something I caught near the end of 2011. So even if this machine is clean, my other isn't, or my backups. Lucky my other one stays offline, but I do copy to and from it to share with people, so it's still a problem.

So as far as I'm concerned, I'm still in trouble. Essexboy suggested I wipe out the expansion dirves but I can't do that, they have several years of info on them I keep archived, and sometimes use. I use them with the other machine and will not put them on here till I can find a way to be sure they're OK, or if they're not, find a way to clean them without wiping them out.