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[rsubax72]

So i was on a website and a windows media file just randomly popped up. I clicked it off straight away and thought everything was fine.
The next minute i have all these warning popping up saying that my disk drives have errors and are failing. Im guessing it was a virus - i was on a bad website.
I restarted the computer because thats what it recommended but when it loaded up again i had half my programs missing and EVERY personal file (pics, schoolwork etc.) was gone.
Anyway - i freaked out for about half an hour until i figured out how to do a system restore and i set it back to how it was 2 days ago.
My computer protection blocked something when it all happened (i dont know what) and i have done a scan and everything seems fine now. Most of my files and programs are back so thats good - but i am missing some stuff (but its not important).

So what happened, was it a virus? What type of virus?

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[loriajuarez]

Sadly enough it was adware. The windows media file you saw was really an ad and the X you clicked was part of it. Once you clicked it the warning messages popped up bringing you further into their clutches. You may have noticed it saying something like security guard or some generic virus protection program. The virus protection program in itself is the adware, it's fear mongering. The easiest way to get rid of it was to do the system restore. If you want to be truly safe make sure there aren't any new programs in your taskbar. If you can remember the name of the program (security guard or security defender, some generic thing) then open up regedit and delete all instances of the program. You may want to go into your browsers tools and options to disable active x. These things have a way of making you think the worst and then they come in on their white horse with a program to save the day for amazingly enough a today only sale for 50% off.

Good Luck
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[Bodhie]

I think it is not adware, because adware is only trying to display unwanted ads (with blocking all programs in the way or something). But if you say it removed all your files then it's worse, it may be a worm or trojan. You'd better get a good antivirus and scan all your computer again. An antivirus can tell the name of the virus.

[jgleed]

In addition to the above there are a couple of online virus checkers you can run to see if you are still infected, because if it is a trojan (or worse a rootkit) it may still be hiding. So this is what you should do.

Make sure your AV is updated to the latest definitions and run it. If that gives you a name for the virus then you have something to target.

Run an online virus scan, quite a few virus/malware/spyware etc can 'hide' from a 3rd party AV but seem to have more problems with one run offsite from the actual computer, they can't latch on to the executing files you see. I'd suggest Panda or Trend Micro, they are both pretty good.

If both of those show clean you're probably doing ok. However I would also get a copy of Malwarebytes, it's free to use, if you want the resident protection and automatic updates you have to buy a licence, but you don't need that to run it and you can update it yourself weekly.

Once you have installed that run it. Full scan, it's designed to specifically target malware and it does it very well. If that comes up clean you are 90% there.

I don't know what resident protection you have on your system but I would also suggest spybot s&d, that is also free (once again you need to do manual updates) and targets spyware primarily and pretty much everything else on a secondary level and it does have an active resident programme that will monitor your browers use full time. I would not suggest installing the TeaTime add on that monitors everything and can sometime slow down a system simply because of the amount of work it is doing.

With those above you'll be pretty covered, just make sure you keep them up to date.

Oh and get a good pop-up blocker, with one of those configured properly this may not have happened. I'm not sure what browser you use but if it is IE change it, some 'ware specifically target that browser. I'd suggest Firefox. If you are already using that then make sure you install the AdBlockPlus add-on. It stops a lot of these problems in their tracks.

HTH

Jay