Friday, May 15, 2009

Panic Attacks

Despite my paranoia about not clicking on dodgy links (even ones sent by friends unless I KNOW they really and truly did send it!!) my computer's been acting up over the last couple of days. Yesterday it got so bad Hotmail kept kicking me off and every time I tried to hop onto a site (even friends' blogs) a warning page flicked up (I think it was total spam but was horribly annoying as it wanted me to click onto its security system to let me continue)

Now I'm pretty good about backing up all my docs, but emails? Uh, no. After running Nortons last night and deleting some viruses, I decided first thing this morning I'd back up my important emails and favourite research sites.

So I logged in, answered a couple of emails and began to back up. I did two before Nortons informed me I had a trojan. Lovely. Cleaned that out and then the dreaded blue page popped up. Three times. Eventually I managed to get past that only to discover my entire email programme had VANISHED. "critical error"

*cue Christina having hysterics*

I googled the problem and hopefully all might not be lost, I'm waiting for my computer genuis to get home. The thought of losing all my email contacts, emails which date back YEARS!!, photos and the publishing history of my two short stories!! it's kind of traumatic really.

And the moral of this story is....

*sigh*

8 comments:

Mon Wood said...

Oh, you poor thing! Don't you hate it when you get a damn virus or the computer no longer complies?

Cmputers can be a headache, but we need them. Love them. Miss them when they're gone!

Good luck getting everything sorted :-) Mon

Kaye Manro said...

Oh my, that's terrible! I hope it's working now and you didn't lose any of your stuff. I understand the panic. When I can't find something I get that way. And I try to keep my virus protection up to date too.

But once my entire computer crashed. Completely crashed. Talk about panic! My computer guy was able to get back everything.

Whew! What a nightmare.

Emma Lai said...

I have a love/hate relationship with technology. I hope you don't lose anything important!

Nell Dixon said...

Hugs, when my laptop got the blue screen of death my computer man managed to retrieve my emails so fingers crossed for you.

Helen Hardt said...

Oh, Christina! I hope it all works out for you. What a pain!

Cari Quinn said...

How scary! I hope everything's back up and running soon and that you haven't lost anything vital. One of my CPs had a computer crash last year and lost a lot of music and writing. She was devastated, so I can only imagine how you must feel! Keep us posted!

*hugs*

Anonymous said...

Christina, Sounds as though you’re having quite a day.

Are you aware there are now update site to install the latest patches to your operating system so the ‘things’ floating around the Internet won’t bother you?

For Microsoft operating systems the address is; http://update.microsoft.com

The problem now is whether to believe me. ----


The motivation to provide address like that above wasn’t the companies who provide the computer software but rather an initiative of the United States government attempting to protecting consumer rights (and computer security in general).

The CERT organisation administers who will do what to which operating system.
http://www.cert.org ---

Hope your day goes better from now on. --- Eric

PS: My thoughts: (To make your day) I don't think backups help. The problem is always in the backup long before it surfaces.

Shelley Munro said...

Oh heck. I feel for you since I lost everything last year. I moved my email to gmail so I can't lose stuff again. I actually find gmail better for SPAM and for organization anyway.