Replies

Had to get some sleep, was 2.30 when I wrote that
Pretty much what ‘Super Moderator’ had to say plus the file transfer in 8 is quite a bit faster than 7 plus I have never been a big fan of IE, I use Firefox instead but IE10 is a big improvement on its predecessors and may just get me back.

I must say that I was one of the detracters and had nothing to do with Win8 until a week or so ago. I set up my spare machine with win8 just to take a look and see what all the hype was about.
I did not and still do not like the metro look and feel, but with ‘start8’ and ‘skip metro suite’ loaded and set up the way I like my desktop to be, I am beginning to see the advantages, and like the speed as well as the added security of Win8.
At $40.00 to upgrade to Win8 pro who can complain, with a good image backup and a fresh install, if you don’t like it, $40.00 is not a big loss and it is easy to go back to Win7 which, as we all know is a very stable and reliable O/S.
My attitude is beginning to change but I still feel that Ms could have done a lot to please everyone with a two version deal, one for the tablet people and one for us traditionalists/profesionals/workers.

I have been using Thunderbird for about two and a half years now, since I started using Win7. I am still not totally satisfied with it.
Just saw ‘kelliann1’s reply and will try that.
If you got Microsoft Office, Outlook is a great mail server but too much for me, would love to get Outlook express back as it was simple and did all I wanted.

Did you try safe mode with networking? If the malware does not run in safe mode, it most likely won’t run in safe mode with networking and, with internet access, you can simply update or download whatever you need to update or download.

Just a quick follow up.
I had another problem with the same virus on another machine about a week ago and tried “Safe Mode with networking” and on that machine it worked OK. The Malwarebytes database updated and removed the virus in a very short time. The total time on the machine was less than an hour and only that long because I ran another 2 scans, MES and Spybot, just to be sure.
Allan

Did you try safe mode with networking? If the malware does not run in safe mode, it most likely won’t run in safe mode with networking and, with internet access, you can simply update or download whatever you need to update or download.

Yes, no go there either. Malwarebytes would run in safe mode, but I could not get it updated till I contacted Malwarebytes.

I would like to know which method caused the problem ‘Proactive or self inflicted’

Self inflicted

I would like to know HOW the machines got infected…

The owner is not too computer savvy unfortunately.
He tells me that a pop up offering him protection from Malware appeared on his screen. he accepted the offer (Why)and therefore was infected. He ran the scan that is part of the scam and was told he had many virus’s and could get it cleaned by sending them $49.95, which he did ( I have told hem repeatedly to contact me before he does anything if he gets an infection, he did not).
Of course he did not get anything for his contribution to the scammers and after a frustrating day or two of not being able to do anything, contacted me.
He had Microsoft Security essentials loaded and updated, firewall was turned on and has been running Advanced windows care (Pro) and Malwarebytes monthly to help keep the system running well.
As I have already said, he is not too computer savvy and basically invited the scammers in by clicking something other than exit/delete/stop/no or what ever (nor did he phone me as he has been encouraged to do when he is presented with something he does not understand) to get rid of the first part of the attack. He has been a friend for years and this is not his first attack.
Cheers
Allan

Yes Joe, I quite agree with that and it is the root cause of why I had to install the IDE drive in the first place even though in the BIOS, the setting “config SATA” is set to IDE.
I would have thought that would have set the drivers in the BIOS to IDE so that Acronis can see the SATA drives but as you say they are not being loaded soon enough.
Is there a way of ensuring that the drivers are loaded sooner in the start up process???

Well I got it going though not the way I would have liked to have, but a usable fix. I have to accept a bit of performance loss but I am not a ‘gamer’ so the loss is acceptable (just).
The motherboard P7P55D-LE has 6 SATA ports and one IDE port, so, I installed a 160Gb IDE hard drive and made it my default operating system drive and deleted the first partition on the 808Gb SATA drive (which was my Win7 drive) after recovering the backed up Win7 files.
The system now runs a 160Gb IDE Win7 drive , a 300Gb SATA BackUp drive and a DATA Partition along with a DVD Workspace partition on the 808 SATA drive.
Not ideal but as I said acceptable, as now I can BackUp and recover from any position or state no matter what happens which is what I wanted to protect my system.
Still a bit bemused about the fact that Acronis will not see a SATA drive in the BIOS but once it is running from the boot disk and see’s the IDE drive it will now see the SATA BackUp drive to supply the files for the recovery of the Win7 drive. ???

Hi Fred
Thanks for the moral support, and no I have not tried a windows repair yet as I believe it to be a BIOS or Acronis fault, but I will keep it in mind, if I cannot sort it out I will try anything. First thing may be a BIOS update, but will let it ride for a while as I said before it is not ultra urgent and my system is running fine ATT.
Cheers
A

Hi Bob Harris,
I also have been using Acronis for a long time and in particular during the testing of Win7 RC1 which I ran from about April 09 until a few days ago when I upgraded my machine to a i7-860 Chip on a P7P55D-LE ASUS Board with 4Gb DDR3 1333 RAM and a 808GB hard drive. I purchased an OEM Win7 Home Premium disk and have loaded it and all is fine except that when I try to load Acronis 2010 is says that the program is not compatible with Home Premium yet it worked fine on the RC1 installation. Acronis web site confirms that fact. I can only assume you guys are using Pro or Ultimate as I cannot get it to run on Home Premium.. If you are getting it to load on H/Prem, please let me know how. The first thing I do after an installation is to use Acronis to take an image of the installation as my primary backup, but I cannot do it with H?Prem
Cheers
Allan.

Is that the first hard drive (about 50Kb or so) being loaded onto a plane.
Al.