Friday, April 22, 2011

Why oh why, or what's the point?


There is nothing more than I hate is that of wasting time.
Maybe because I have less sand in the hourglass than I had a year ago. Maybe because there are so many things that I want to do and as the cliche says " so little time".

So when my desktop computer started acting lame, I knew that I would waste a lot of time trying to resolve the issue.

And I was right.

For some reason I got an virus, or malware or trojan horse, a pain in the ass no matter what you want to call it.

What the malady was is if you put in a line on a google or yahoo search , your result would come in, but when you clicked on it, it would take you to a totally different site.

Calling a computer guru friend of mine in Northern California, he instantly knew it was the Goggle Redirect....Great.....So what's the cure I asked?

Well................

The cure would be to start the computer in safe mode then run one of the anti virus programs.
In my minuscule conceptual logic, I failed to understand how if my virus program didn't catch the dastardly virus the first time it would do it again.

It failed miserably.

I ran, one first, then another, and because the culprit did it's work rather well, I couldn't down load it on the computer, I had to put it on my laptop first, then transfer it to the desktop, so on and so on.

It was not my day, to have functionality, at least on the computer.

After multiple scans it found nothing.

I even restored to back a week or two, which made it work.......Great...... for about 1 hour and it was back.
Now my restore was corrupted.

More time, tried another malware virus program, then it got worse.
Now the computer only worked in safe mode.

Only one thing left to do is copy my photos, documents and any other stuff and reinstall the operating system.
Next hassle.

In trying to copy my photos, my file had about 5 gigs of photos.
My flash drive was only a 4 gig unit.

No problem, I buzz down to Soriana and pick up some DVD, and burn them with the photos and docs.

Well it sounds good, but there is a difference between a R+ and a R- DVD. My computer didn't like the R+ I found after I bought a half dozen of them.
Luckily a friend brought over one R- DVD and that worked for most of the pictures and the flash worked for the remainder.

With the data that I needed off the hard drive, it was time to reinstall the OS. But first one last check.
Photos.....off.
Documents .....off
Drivers for the printer and VPN......off.

So the power goes off and we put in the OS disk, reboot the computer and start reinstalling the OS.
All goes well after about 30 minutes.
Up comes up the Internet.......searches go like they are suppose to.
I download Firefox, install my Xmarks program and test one of my bookmarks.
It goes to the site and asks for the password.
........................................................

I forgot to transfer all the passwords from Firefox. Some I cannot remember, some where from friends who have the original permission, oh Crap.

So now I will have to piece together the password collection which amount only to about a dozen or so, but it will be more work.

So, I hope the person is reeling in their chair, enjoying their virus plant, because I fail to see what benefit it poses for them other than to piss people off.
Too bad there are no easy ways to figure out exactly who is responsible for such a waste of time and resources.

The real disappointing thing is that the spyware was suppose to catch this kind of stuff and it failed miserably.

On the bright side, installing the OS, at least gave me a fresh start and the computer boots up faster now because a lot of the garbage stuff over the years is gone from the registry files and the old computer is running like new......at least for the time being. Now I just have to figure out where the damn thing came from, which I doubt I ever will.

Probably one of those dastardly blogs that some retired person is writing about Mexican flowers or beans....... You take your pick.

Or perhaps it was one of those sites where I can order pills to restore all my hair all over my body.
No one will ever know.

Computer troubleshooting and repair all totaled, 12 hours.
Experience received, not wanted.....priceless.

6 comments:

- Mexican Trailrunner said...

omg Had to laugh. So been there.
Yeah, good question - what IS the point! $%*^#@$
Glad it's behind you, happy computing.

Calypso said...

Yes - also been there! Currently fooling with my Blog skin and re-introducing myself to some high level coding just to get around the limited color scheme offerings.

Are we having fun yet - oh sure!

Hang-in there amigo - we would hate to lose you to frustration.

jerryL said...

Been there done that, not a bit fun, would like to also get my hands around the choking neck of the author.

Don Cuevas said...

Tancho;
I would have used the problem as an excuse to get a new computer.

Speaking of odd computer behavior. Only at Felipe Zapata's blog the identification fields for commenting are not filled in already. I have to do it (GASP!) manually.

On the Tancho blog, Google/Blogspot always informs me that my browser cookies are disabled and I can't comment until I enable them. I don't know what more I need to do to enable them.

So I click my Google Mail bookmark, which so far always works, and that little act allows me to return and comment here.

Have a nice evening.

Saludos,
Don Cuevas

Mmm. The Secret Word for today is "nowbaked". It knows me!

Anonymous said...

Well, I ain't been there, and don't want to go there.

But I wonder why you didn't just go to one of the computer places downtown and get some kid to come clean everything up in a nanosecond for about ten bucks.

But instead you phoned somebody in California?!

-- Felipe

Tancho said...

Don Cuevas, This is a new computer, I only bought it about two years ago, but in computer age, you are right, it is obsolete already. Your issue is with google, there is something funny with having to do with logging on with them first before the autofill will work on other google blogs.Once you do that then it sort of works ok until you log of or leave the google universe.
Not sure about the wordpress situation...
Hey, no fair, I am still waiting for my secret word from about 18 months ago.....
(Oh and my last batch of half sours is ready...they taste great! I was lucky to find some small cucs at Mega about a week or so ago)


Felipe, 10 bucks? Why would I spend 10 bucks when I can flog myself perfectly well for free?
I ran all the cleaning programs actually about of them with no luck, which is what the kids would have done. My Cal buddy told me that I would probably eventually have to reload the operating system which I did, all is well for now....until.....