Posted by Victor (24.240.219.36) on December 01, 2001 at 23:18:14:
In Reply to: If anyone has any ideas.....I need some help posted by Charlie on December 01, 2001 at 21:47:39:
Besides having to contend with the jerks on the web, it's very probable that your hard drive can break down and you will lose all of your data. While some companies can extract data from your HD, this is very expensive. It helps to have at least two computers to back up important data using an update virus checker before passing files. Once a computer is fully functional, you should back up the entire system, normally the cheapest and most reliable way is to back up your entire HD on CD's.
That way if your CD reader goes bad, just get another. The price of hardware is dirt cheap.
You could try using McAfees or Norton Utilities to correct whatever is wrong with your computer. Win98 and above have a files check utility to restore lost files, but all these files must be listed first.
If all else fails with a bad virus, only choice is to try and save whatever data you can, reformat and reload all of your programs. Course this wouldn't be necessary if you automatically made backup's and stored on CD's or Zip disk. You should install the latest versions of both anti-virus and firewall programs and set them so they automatically update.
Also good to make an icon of C:\WINDOWS\WINIPCFG.EXE
and shut your web connection down while not actively using the web, when off line, not even the best hacker can get into your box. Just hit release then click renew when getting back on line, only takes a second.
All of your e-mail programs have to be fed through the virus software, my software stops the loading process before it hits the HD if a virus is present where it can be deleted before loading.
You have some 65534 ports a hacker can enter your computer and all must be protected. I consider my files too important to even be remotely accessable on the web so my main LAN is not even connected to the web. Just a simple basic computer and if a hacker does get in, won't find anything of value. The files I do downloaded are virus checked than transferred via CDRW to the LAN system, virus checked again, then loaded. It also helps to have a dynamic IP server so if a hacker is targeting you, you can bounce around.
Only way a hacker can get into my system is to break into my work place, that he/she is welcomed to try, would be nice to meet one of these bastards face to face, but most hackers are chicken shit little bastards that have to hide behind a keyboard.
Just wonder how it feels to be a sneaky son of a bitch, these bastards are no different than Usama, some take time to catch, but sooner or later they make a slight mistake.
But besides all this, you should still make backups, a brand new HD can fail, you will get a free replacement, but they won't recover your data. If you are not smart enough to save your data on backups, you will be after you have problems.