Computer Issues

While researching materials for next months unit study on the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving I  came across a site that offered multiple helpful resources including some cute videos.  It seems though that one of the videos introduced a virus that made it appear my hard drive experienced a complete system failure.

I watched helplessly as my screen shutdown then began showing one system failure alert after another.  My icons all began to systematically disappear as more system failure folders showed up on the screen.  I was able to access and start a virus scan, but wasn't sure if that's what this was or my computer hard drive was actually shot.  I decided to wait for my IT dept. head, aka Kevin, to get home and take a look.

He ultimately found it's a malware virus that trys to sell you their product to "restore" your system and thus hijacks your computer.  Kevin is still working to clean out the thing and bring back my files and tools that are in here, just hidden from my current use.

Now I am not a computer junky, but I seriously did not realize how much I've come to rely on this thing until I had no access to it yesterday.  I lamented the pictures and homeschool files I had not backed up and might  have lost.   How many times I use this to now check info for school resources, or to give me news or information updates.   I  have all sorts of teaching resources and music I've downloaded that I like to listen to as I do things around the house.

Even when ready to get dinner together I went to grab a recipe and realized I couldn't get it from my computer.  SO, moral of the story be careful in what sites you open up even if they seem perfectly legit.  Backup what you don't want to lose regularly, to a source other than your computer !!!  Realize life worked prior to computer and survival without is possible ?  :  (

Hopefully by my next post I'll have access to my pictures and tools back to be able to return to a format I use regularly.  In the meantime I am really grateful to Kevin for his hard work that gives me this much of an access back to my computer and for salvaging and backing up to CD my pictures and school files !!!!!!    The idea of losing those memories and all that work was truly upsetting.