My PC crashed about 9:30 p.m. Friday. I worked to get back on line and t oreload programs since that time. This is the third major crash my PC has endured in four years. There is an alert from McAfee about a worm that invades when one simply goes on line. I lost all my files--fortunately, none are that important.

thank you for the heads up, my pc has been acting up here in the last week or so, I wonder if I got this too.

do you know the name of the worm?

River

Sorry to hear about your problem with your computer, Old Softee. Unfortunately, given the state of computer development, catastrophic crashes are a simple fact of life, as you well know.

You're fortunate in that your data files are not all that important to you. That means simply restoring the operating system to its "as delivered" state is not that big a deal. For many other users, myself included, the things that have been added to the hard drive since the machine was first turned on are much more valuable than whatever was installed at the factory.

As I've said and written many times, any computer user who values his data files must have some sort of disk imaging and restoration system in place. That way, when (not if) a catastrophic crash occurs, the computer can be put back like it was in less than an hour.

All it takes is a drive that can record to CDs or DVDs (I paid about $30 last week for a combination drive), imaging and restoration software (I use Image for Windows, which costs $27), and a few blank disks (pennies apiece if you shop around). It takes about 15 minutes to record an image of the typical computer hard drive (unless you've loaded lots of photo and music files), and if that's done once a month, you'll never lose more than 30 days worth of stuff. Well worth it, in my estimation.

As far as a virus (or other type of crapware) that can install on a computer all by itself, I can only say that it's certainly possible for that to happen on an unguarded machine. However, if the user has installed even minimal protection, such as AVG free edition and ZoneAlarm free edition (and keeps them updated), then it probably won't happen. Two of the four computers here in our home are connected to the Internet 24/7, and I have never had any type of infection, other than some innocuous adware. In addition, I do tech support for the several dozens of computers I've sold from my home business. Before any machine leaves here, AVG and ZoneAlarm are pre-installed. In every case where an infection has occurred, it happened because the customer turned off the automatic updates. I'm not saying that at some time in the future viruses, worms, or Trojans won't be able to infect a computer all on their own, but as of this time, I haven't seen any evidence of that.

O.S.,

Did you have to put in a new hard drive?

If not, I have a file recovery utility you may like.

I think that I am simply going to use the crash as an opportunity, but thank you. I can access what I need to replace the photo files. I was going to scan them a second time anyway. I may requet the recovery utility later, however. This was the ghost of Kartina crash. w

Riverwind (imported) wrote: Sun Sep 11, 2005 6:41 am thank you for the heads up, my pc has been acting up here in the last week or so, I wonder if I got this too.

do you know the name of the worm?

RiverRiver,

The worm is called Herman (http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/worms/)... watch out, it could be a killer!

Now, you tell me! Thank you for the information. Still, nice looking critter!

I was getting repeated crashes on 98SE, so I took advice from several people, and now have XP Pro. Guess what, it crashed twice yesterday. Nothing lost, but I saved all my files on eight CDs before reformatting. I just have to remember to make new updates every month.

HairyHarry (imported) wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2005 2:42 pm I was getting repeated crashes on 98SE, so I took advice from several people, and now have XP Pro. Guess what, it crashed twice yesterday. Nothing lost, but I saved all my files on eight CDs before reformatting. I just have to remember to make new updates every month.

Hey dude!

If you are running XP Pro, you have more trouble than you think if you crashed again... Get some help and check that hard drive. You have some holes that need to be plugged. XP Pro is preemptive. You should not be crashing. At most, an application will shut down and the OS continues all other apps running at the time of disturbance.

Take care my friend,

I thought about changing to the pro option. I will when I buy another PC. This is not a good moment for me to spend the money. I think that I ought to have gone for the pro option when I first bougth this PC.