Computer crashed

[Kofschip]

Five days ago I got the following dreaded message:

\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is missing or corrupt. :stop:

Then I tried a Safe Boot and got the same message. :pop4:
I was busy with some other things for a couple of days and was not able to do the following immediately.
Tonight I got rid of the virus, reloaded my operating system (XP) and restored all my programs and files from my 1.5 TB Free Agent external drive in about three hours.

THE MORAL OF THIS TALE OF WOE IS:

BACKUP, BACKUP AND BACKUP. :d:d

[harleyman]

Or use better Antivirus ....

[Kofschip]

Or use better Antivirus ....

Which antivirus will catch all of them?

[OBIO]

It's not always a virus that takes out that critical Config/System file. I once had my OS fragged twice in a month due to having some RAM of the wrong speed in my system. I bought 4 sticks of RAM off of E-Bay...advertised as DDR266 PC2100 (?)....two sticks were what was advertised, two sticks were faster speed RAM....RAM that my motherboard could not support. The mix match of RAM threw an error that wiped out the Config/System file. The first time it happened, I lost 6 well developed installs of CFS2, tons and tons of paint templates, sound packs, panel tweaks, repaints, etc.

And there is no one anti-virus that catches every single virus/trojan/bug out there. The only sure way to have a totally safe system is to never put it on line, never transfer files from other computers onto it.

OBIO

[Dangerousdave26]

Which antivirus will catch all of them?

The OFF Button! :icon_lol:

Keep it off and you will have no problems.

Other than that

No anti virus program is fool proof.

You did good :applause:

BACK UP PEOPLE thats what it is for.

[harleyman]

Well..

I'm a reseller for PCTools Antivirus / Spyware....

Never had the first bug in all of my 7 computers that are online always...

It catches everything , everytime...Or it has for this long...

I also install it on many customers computers to get them healthy , overtop of Norton, mackafee, Trend, and Kaspersky and fine lots of things that were missed by those programs... Happens almost daily...LOL

[txnetcop]

Things happen. It's electronic. I backup my whole disk, Operating System included using Acronis True Image. Ever since I lost some very valuable information I could never retreive I decided to do it right. This is the best package out there and worth every penny. They even have secure online backup as an alternative...not as cheap as MOZY though.
Ted

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/?source=yahoo&ad={ifsearch:ati}{ifcontent:ati+content}&promo=yahoo&OVRAW=acronis%20true%20image&OVKEY=acronis%20true%20image&OVMTC=standard&OVADID=43443806012&OVKWID=292364339012
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[Bjoern]

Which antivirus will catch all of them?

None.

Avira's stuff (both free- and payware) is pretty good though. Their free Antivir ranks better than a good portion of payware products.

Other than that, the biggest protection from malware is...*drum roll*...common sense. ;)

That System32 thing isn't necessarily related to a virus. I've had to fix serveral broken Windows registrys on my and my parent's PCs that were just caused by a bad shutdown.

[Kofschip]

Whatevercaused this crash, I will never know for sure. But I tell you, I am glad that I am in a semi paranoid backup mode. I did not lose anything, except for a few hours of my time.:bump: