windows32 possilby compromised? ...help?

[RpgGamer]

I was interneting just a bit too hard the other night, and my laptop caught something all kinds of nasty. Hijacker got into my system, and shut off all my security, next thing I know my screen explodes in both real and fake error messages and my RAM buckled under the weight, crashing my laptop to restart. It booted up again, and upon start up it did the same thing. I booted in safe mode, ran a scan with MalwareBytes, it found to HIjackers and deleted them. Restarted, booted normally and the same error messages resulted in a crash again. This process happened once more. On the third try, I scanned and found nothing, but the error messages continued to spam up and destroy my RAM. At this point, all of my documents/pictures/music were deleted and my C:/ drive was deemed "unreadable". I did a system restart to go back to the 16th [~52 hours before the attack]. Everything is running smoothly and operating, except for Windows explorer. All my normal warnings and such are reminding me to upgrade my security and whatnot, and all is normal with the exception of my files. I opened Windows Media Player to see if my music was still somewhere in the confines of my computer, and I was relieved to see all of it was still playable. I played a couple songs just to be sure, and they worked just fine. I walked away to pee after fighting with the damn thing for so long, and when I came back my playlist was empty and it read "There are no items in your music library". Well that's not good. I went to the start menu, into my C:/ drive and all of my folders were still intact...but their contents were not. I can go into properties and see the files are taking up space on my HDD, but can not see the files themselves. I can do a "history of folder" and see the files, and can look at the manually, but I have no access to them through Windows Explorer. Under "Libraries" there are no sub-folders [ie: Music, Movies, Pictures, etc].

 

Does anyone know how to remedy this so I can actually access my files, most importantly my music? I'd be devastated to try to rebuild the library I've accumulated over the past 6 years...

[RpgGamer]

alright, I managed to find my documents and contents of my libraries by going into my control panel and unhiding all of my folders. The Jacker took everything on my harddrive and switched it to "read-only" and "hide all". So now I can see everything, but I can't access it because Windows 7 uses libraries, which have been deleted. If I restore libraries to their default, will it destroy everything that was in the library or will it just give me my library back, and all of it's proper contents?

[Sbrideau]

You know what, just to be faster than doing everything, I suggest doing a restore to the 16th again, and without an internet connection (or even in safe mode) I would back everything up on a separate drive (songs and stuff) and do a clean reinstall of Windows. It's a pain in the ass but will make sure everything is gone.

[JPMC Mate]

Yeah, in situations like yours, a fresh install is the best way to ensure all the files work again. Don't worry though, even if you do a clean install, the process will put the files in a folder called Windows.old. However, still back-up your files.

[D. V. Devnull]

You know what, just to be faster than doing everything, I suggest doing a restore to the 16th again, and without an internet connection (or even in safe mode) I would back everything up on a separate drive (songs and stuff) and do a clean reinstall of Windows. It's a pain in the ass but will make sure everything is gone.

Heck, maybe they should use a Linux Live CD to help them do the backup as safely as possible? At least then none of the junk that has infected Windows would be running. :huh:

 

~D. V. "Just a thought..." Devnull

[Sbrideau]

You know what, just to be faster than doing everything, I suggest doing a restore to the 16th again, and without an internet connection (or even in safe mode) I would back everything up on a separate drive (songs and stuff) and do a clean reinstall of Windows. It's a pain in the ass but will make sure everything is gone.

Heck, maybe they should use a Linux Live CD to help them do the backup as safely as possible? At least then none of the junk that has infected Windows would be running. :huh:

 

~D. V. "Just a thought..." Devnull

Yeah that is a good idea, as soon as the restore is done, going outside Windows and backing up the files with a linux live CD is a very good idea as you can be sure the files won't go back to the hidden status.