Electronics

[cbrite]

Somehow I got a virus or ???......... a few months ago and it hit both my large desk top pc's........had Asus over 7+ years and was the best computer I've ever owned....

When I got 'hit', it went through both pc's + both monitors and everything else I had hooked up through my USB's....was like a light show... cost me a terrible heart ache.....they were both Windows 7... and I had software which cannot be replaced now on this  Dell I bought.

I hate the thing.....it keeps shutting down...like 25x a day....or IE is not responding.... I have back up but still I cannot replace certain software... and I'm not in a position to learn a new one at this time in my life. I'd never go to 10 - not in a million...

I'd go to Apple/Mac. I just am not able to do that now... and I cannot get back to YT....so I'm here for the time being..... Just thought u shud know I'll not stay forever.... no reply necessary. tia.

[wishmoon]

Can you buy a refurbished Macbook on payments? 

[glb613]

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@cbrite wrote:

Somehow I got a virus or ???......... a few months ago and it hit both my large desk top pc's........had Asus over 7+ years and was the best computer I've ever owned....

When I got 'hit', it went through both pc's + both monitors and everything else I had hooked up through my USB's....was like a light show... cost me a terrible heart ache.....they were both Windows 7... and I had software which cannot be replaced now on this  Dell I bought.

I hate the thing.....it keeps shutting down...like 25x a day....or IE is not responding.... I have back up but still I cannot replace certain software... and I'm not in a position to learn a new one at this time in my life. I'd never go to 10 - not in a million...

I'd go to Apple/Mac. I just am not able to do that now... and I cannot get back to YT....so I'm here for the time being..... Just thought u shud know I'll not stay forever.... no reply necessary. tia.

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Start over.  Format the hard drive, reinstall the operating system and all of your programs.  Be sure to save everything you can before proceeding. If that's not possible, I hope you have your data saved from a recent backup.  

[cbrite]

@glb613 

Are you referring to my old Asus et al, or the new Dell ? I don't save anything to this Dell. No point. Yes, I've backed up everything on the previous systems.

[cbrite]

@wishmoon How sweet of you to reply....it's not a matter of cost....

[gardenman]

If it was a computer virus you should be able to wipe your Asus drive clean and reload everything and be right back where you were. Viruses don't really kill a computer, they just mess with the data. Wiping the drive removes all of the old data, including the virus. Wipe the drive, reinistall everything and you're back to where you were.

You said it went through everything and was like a light show, which which makes me suspect it might have been a voltage surge that hit your system and took out everything. If that's the case then replacement is your best option.

[cbrite]

@gardenman@glb613 thanks for that info..........I felt there was possibly a power surge too...cord melted. Wall plug outlet was melted.

This is what I get now on this Dell....99% of my day is dealing with this.

[juperier]

I vote for it being a voltage surge. I've never heard of a virus that could do that. I'd be worried until someone who knows more about electrical wiring and the effect of power surges on computers than I do checked things out...both house and computer. It's hard to know which, if any. parts of your computer might have been damaged. 

Once I knew there wasn't damage that created a potential fire risk and that any damage was limited to the hard drive, I might try doing a clean re-install of windows, run all updates, then reinstall all my other programs and copy my backed up files. But, honestly, I'd probably just buy a new hard drive and do the re-install on that. (Or I'd use it as an excuse to build a new computer from scratch to re-install windows on. First build was fun, but couldn't justify building another so soon.)

Why don't you want to go to Windows 10? You're going to have to in a couple of years anyway. It's really fine once your get used to it. (Well, except for Cortana....I hate Cortana)

[apple1964]

If you do update to 10 .. you do not have to use the tiles you can use a regular startup screen like you would see on a windows 7. Once you get used to 10 you will like it very much. You got used to 7 you can get used to 10. I had windows pro 7 and thought I would never change over and update and I did one day and I was glad I did.