Adventures in Hard Drive Recovery

Computer Viruses

With the increasing number of computer viruses being sent out through email on a daily basis, the average person may not even realize that his or her computer has been infected until it is too late. Often causing irreparable damage to a computer’s hard drive, thus causing the loss of numerous files and programs, computer viruses like W32.MyLife, W32.Sobig, W32.Bugbear, W32.Klez and W32.Mydoom have resulted in millions of dollars of damage and countless hours of file recovery. Spread by opening an infected file sent through email or downloading an infected file off of a website, computer viruses or worms work by overwriting and deleting files on your hard drive. Moreover, when they are not properly removed, worms can also attach themselves to files on your computer and thereby be re-executed every time you open an infected file.

As computer viruses become increasingly more complex, involving more and more system elements, protecting yourself against an infection is the first step in ensuring the safe functioning of your computer. The following is a short list on of ways to ensure maximum virus protection:

• Buy and install the latest anti-virus software from Norton Antivirus of McAfee.
• Always keep your antivirus definitions up-to-date by performing regular updates with your antivirus provider.
• Never open an email attachment from an unknown sender. Because many viruses can infect a computer’s address book and begin sending out infected attachments to everyone on the list, always be wary of email attachments even if they are from someone you know.
• Perform a regular scan of your hard drive with your antivirus software or ScanDisk Utilities.
• Enable your antivirus software to scan all incoming and outgoing emails.
• Do not execute software downloaded from the Internet until it has been scanned by your antivirus software.

Of course, even taking all the above-mentioned precautions does not mean that your computer is completely immune from infection. If you suspect that your computer may be infected with a particular virus, run a free virus scan by downloading one of Symantec’s removal tools and follow the step-by-step procedure given to removing any computer viruses that may be present.