Afraid to lost my file
By mirmacs
@mirmacs (52)
Philippines
February 13, 2009 6:50am CST
I have many important files in the hard disk and am fraid that I might lost them since I dont have virus killer in my PC. I am afraid to use my thumbdrive because I believed that virus can can easily get in and contaminate my files. I was advised to use cd to store file from the internet for virus can't transfer from the CD to the my PC. It is it true that virus is trapped in the CD and can't get in while saving some files into your PC?
2 people like this
2 responses
@agirlfromtomorrow (290)
• Egypt
15 Feb 09
Although this is what I always hear, a CD once got my PC contaminated by a virus and I had to re-format it
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
16 Feb 09
If you got a virus from a CD, it was because the data on the CD (probably an install program) was infected with a virus when the CD was made. It is quite common for illegal, hacked copies of software to contain viruses and, if they are saved to a CD, they will, of course, install the virus!
@agirlfromtomorrow (290)
• Egypt
16 Feb 09
Mirmacs, well if you are not gonna download the files then I guess you are right you probably won't get the Virus into your computer (I think).
Owlwings, I don't think the CD was illegal it was a bonus CD with a Magazine.
@mirmacs (52)
• Philippines
16 Feb 09
What I heard also is that when you open the thumbdrive virus gets into your PC while in CD it is read only virus can't get in, unless you upload the files or data contaminated with to your PC? Did you understand what I mean? Please clarify this because I don't want to lose my files.Thank you (mirmacs)
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
13 Feb 09
The very first thing you should do is to get a good antivirus software. There are a number of free ones available and the one I recommend is AVG Free which you can download from here: http://free.avg.com/
Once you have installed it, run a complete scan. Depending on the size of your hard disk, this may take an hour or so. If it finds anything, then allow it to deal with the viruses.
There are certainly some viruses which can infect a thumbdrive but, in fact, if you have infected files which you copy to a CD, the virus can infect other PCs when those files are opened or run. The only way to be certain that the files you copy are not infected is to run a virus scan first.
It should be remembered that files such as photos and music files are unlikely to be infected. MS Office files (.doc, .xls, .ppt) can be infected by certain malicious software but would only be dangerous if you allow macros to run automatically. The most common files that viruses infect are executable files with the extension .exe, .com and .dll. Those are not data files and you would very likely not copy them to external storage, anyway.
@mirmacs (52)
• Philippines
13 Feb 09
Thank for a good information you gave me. But the problem is I don't know how to download this software? If i have successfully download it, How do I run a complete scan, when a friend of mine told me that to run a complete scan I have to to reformat my hard drive? Is it true that when you will reformat your PC you lost your files? Please give me another feedback. Thanks Owlwing
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
13 Feb 09
Yes, reformatting deletes EVERYTHING on the disk you are formatting, including Windows, so EVERYTHING has to be reinstalled or restored from a backup. That is why I am not suggesting that you even think about reformatting!
If a PC is very badly infected with viruses (and I am hoping that yours isn't), reformatting and reinstalling takes much less time than searching out and getting rid of all the problems. Many shops and service centres would rather reformat than bother to spend the time curing multiple problems, which is probably why someone said that is what you should do. They were, I'm afraid, advising you to kill a mouse with a cannon!
