Attention fellow builders ... A life lesson learned the hard way - Page 2

Guitars44me · #16 02-12-2017, 08:19 PM

Tim and Mary, what a major blow! I am almost computer illiterate, but I just bumble along with my iPad…

I'm sure all of us here on AGF wish you well!

Hang in there...

Paul

Tim McKnight · #17 02-12-2017, 08:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSDenvir

Tim, I'm sorry for your troubles, but thank you for the heads up.

Steve

Thanks Steve. This is probably the wrong forum for this discussion but I just wanted to warn as many fellow builders as I could. I just can't believe that all of my research, documentation, notes, etc... that has gone poof in the blink of an eye. Perhaps by raising awareness I can prevent one of you from a similar situation. Just be vigilant in all that you do.

TomB'sox · #18 02-12-2017, 08:53 PM

It is bad enough when a regular virus gets going and crashes the hard drive. This is a violation like being robbed. I am very sorry, this sucks!!!!!!

fazool · #19 02-12-2017, 08:58 PM

So upsetting.....doing an extra external backup of everything now, as I type this (about 2/3 way through a multi hour backup copy)......

Sorry to be reminded of this from your misfortune

Tim McKnight · #20 02-12-2017, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TomB'sox

It is bad enough when a regular virus gets going and crashes the hard drive. This is a violation like being robbed. I am very sorry, this sucks!!!!!!

I admit that it's my fault for leaving my external back up drive plugged in so that's a lesson I won't soon forget. It just gets under my skin that some punk was trying to make a buck off of hacking me. It's certainly a corrupt violation to put it nicely.

Tim McKnight · #21 02-12-2017, 09:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fazool

So upsetting.....doing an extra external backup of everything now, as I type this (about 2/3 way through a multi hour backup copy)......

Sorry to be reminded of this from your misfortune

Smart move and I hope everyone that is reading this follows your foot steps!

rogthefrog · #22 02-12-2017, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tim McKnight

We immediately took my PC and external drive to a local tech shop. They are very reputable and have been in business for many years. They said a local doctor recently got the same Trojan worm. The doctor paid the ransom ($500 in Bitcoin) and never got his files back. The technician said we could try to pay the ransom but to be prepared for loosing everything. We opted not to pay the ransom. The store had the PC for a few days and they went to several resources to try to find a work around but were unable to recover any of my encrypted files.

Going forward they suggested backing our files up on an offsite 3rd party as well. They suggested Carbonite. We will likely do that aafter we recover emotionally.

Mary's PC had the same virus but it had not damaged anything yet. They were able to scrub her external hard drive. She had Vista OS and they said they did not suggest buying a new OS so we bought a used PC with Windows 10 and that is a another can of worms learning a new OS on top of the other trials.

That's terrible. Sorry to hear that.

A good, very inexpensive, rock-solid alternative to Carbonite is Backblaze. I recommend them highly.

JamesO · #23 02-12-2017, 10:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fazool

. . . I recently gave up and pay for Google Drive...

PSA: I'd be careful with Drive. I used it to create a second back-up of my most critical files (my notes from law school), and it converted a lot of my less common file-types into jpgs. And then only the first page (i.e., the first page of a multi-page document was turned into a jpg and the rest were lost). I do love it for storing images and Google Docs.

Really sorry this happened to you, Tim. Backblaze is another popular backup service. $50 per year and unlimited storage. I believe you can send an external drive to them for your initial backup. That can save a lot of time depending on your upload speed.

Larry Pattis · #24 02-12-2017, 10:40 PM

Sorry to hear about your troubles, Tim.

I have two portable hard drives, 2 TB each.

One is on my desk, unconnected unless I am backing-up. The other is in a safety deposit box at my bank. I swap the two drives every week or so.

Computers are great.

Human beings are way messed up...also theft, fires, and floods happen.

I think I'll back-up right now, and go to the bank tomorrow.

Stevien · #25 02-12-2017, 10:42 PM

Tim, sorry about your loss. The reason I am posting, is I found a shortcut to the cryptic back-ups that everyone hates, & that takes so long. And the reason I did, is I had a crash several years ago, & I was diligent about my back-ups. Only problem was, my back-up failed me. Back-up files could not be read. I lost everything. So back-ups aren't safe, either. So, I realized everything on the computer can easily be replaced, Windows, system files, programs, etc. Only the personal files cannot be replaced. So I created a folder on my computer, you can name it whatever you want, with sub folders inside of it, & everything personal & worth keeping, I drop into the folder, instead of storing it where Windows wants to store it. Then, every month or two, I just copy that folder to an external hard drive, & pack it away. And copying a folder full of files only takes about 10 minutes, compared to doing a full system back-up which takes hours (and is why most people don't do them). So, my old laptop gets old & crashes, I get a new one, transfer my folder, & I'm up & running within an hour like nothing happened, with all my stuff & info. If there's something wrong with what I'm doing, please someone tell me, but it's been working for me for years now. Why back-up all the system crap that's going to be on your next computer anyway?
Steve

random works · #26 02-12-2017, 11:15 PM

Tim, it might be of a some help to consider: the AGF has had a number of posts with your guitar builds chronicled. Specs and pictures are at least available.

gitarro · #27 02-13-2017, 01:12 AM

Sorry to hear of what happened...can't believe how yut perpetrators can look at themselves in the mirror for preying on others like that...

frankhond · #28 02-13-2017, 01:23 AM

If you are planning to buy a new computer, consider a mac. These worms have so far not afflicted macs because the mac os is designed differently.

kkrell · #29 02-13-2017, 01:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Larry Pattis

I have two portable hard drives, 2 TB each.

One is on my desk, unconnected unless I am backing-up. The other is in a safety deposit box at my bank. I swap the two drives every week or so.

I suggest adding a couple more into your rotation, to include some longer-term backups. Say, keep one 2 & 4 months old. Sometimes it takes awhile to realize something is missing or corrupted.

I also make my backups using drive cloning, with the backup only attached with the system off, then boot directly to a CD with the cloning software. No network or Internet connection.

In between cloned backups, I do copy data directories to another disc (using the operating system), using Teracopy. Teracopy checks for duplicates & avoids copying unchanged files. It can also verify copies, can be paused if I need some speed for my other computer use, and reports any failures. Many commercial backup programs can also be setup to only copy changed files, optionally keeping all (multiple) versions. I'd use an online backup service, too, but my internet speed is too slow.

Marcus Wong · #30 02-13-2017, 01:51 AM

I am so sorry to hear about this Tim & Mary! I believe the most pressing issue now would be all the clients with upcoming builds? Unless you have that memorised or written down somewhere? My parents were just scammed last week of over a grand by con-artists pretending to be policemen while in Rome. It must be very frustrating on your end.