Joined: Oct 25, 2001
Posts: 2597
From: Poughkeepsie, New York
Posted: 2012-02-28 15:17
Back online after a real nasty virus hit last weekend. Seems to have targeted only Win7 64bit. Interesting part was that I could not re-install Win7/64 at first. Keep getting a master boot record failure on c:drive. Finally had to install Win7/32 to re-install the 64 bit version. I was fully protected at the time of the hit. Very interesting.
Joined: Feb 28, 2003
Posts: 9160
From: Chicago,IL, USA
Posted: 2012-02-28 21:40
Jeez NiteHawk, what gives with that?
Did you determine which virus it was? I also run Win7 64bit and thought well protected but if the virus got through your defense it makes me a bit nervous. I uderstand that a virus would try to attack the MBR but obviously it didn't really if you were able to install the 32 bit Win7. Does that even make any sense to you?
Did you do an overlay of the 64 bit over the 32 or did you do a fresh install after getting the 32 bit to work?
Joined: Oct 25, 2001
Posts: 2597
From: Poughkeepsie, New York
Posted: 2012-02-29 09:09
This is my second time not being able to recover from a virus attack running Win7-64 in about two years. Most of my attacks have been fended off by MS Security Essentials. My latest hit took place last Friday night, while surfing a technology site. Virus protection caught it. Once I made sure it was not a phony announcement, (that's how I got burnt the first time using Win7-64 and Security Essential), I allowed virus protection to delete virus. Within 5 min my system browsing slowed down considerably, at which time I knew I had been stricken.
What's interesting is that my web browser, IE9, started acting funny a couple of weeks earlier where my clicking on a link would not always work, unless I did a right button click and select "open link". Was going to do a clean install anyway. This problem moved everything up a bit.
Was waiting for the prompt to let me delete the partition to do a new install and was told I could not proceed any further because of MBR problems on hard drive. After the second try I literally panicked because I've never seen this before. Search the web and found nothing on my particular problem. Went to bed thinking that I was going to purchase another drive tomorrow and hopefully retrieve info from partitioned bad drive.
Got up and decided to throw the 32-bit version in before heading to the store. Got pass the partitioning and decided to let the install continue. Then, I inserted the 64-bit and was able to do a clean from the beginning. All my backup data was still there, thank goodness.
Joined: Feb 28, 2003
Posts: 9160
From: Chicago,IL, USA
Posted: 2012-02-29 21:18
Thanks NiteHawk for the explanation. I have only been running Win7 64 bit for about six months. With all the continuous Security Updates you would think it was bullet proof. So far I have only had one threat that Avast caught. Oddly enough it was while surfing for a background for one of my home movies.
I have run into a MBR error before on a Western Digital 40GB but it did actually have damaged sectors. Even a low level format wouldn't help. Happy to hear that you thought of trying the 32 bit. Don't know what made you try it. I don't know if I woud have thought of it before replacing the hard drive. Good call.
I guess it only makes sense that Win7 64 would be thetarget. The bastards that create the virus always go for the operating system that is the most popular at the time. Really appreciate the heads up.
Joe
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Posted: 2012-02-28 15:17
