Bill, Thanks for the warning. I picked up a virus (PrettyPark) about a year ago, and it ended up costing me a small fortune to get rid of because I know NOTHING about computers. I now have my Norton set to pick up the updates once a week, but my free year is about up. I will definitely subscribe to keep current & protected. Recently we picked up the "kak-worm" virus, having NO idea who/where it came from). Fortunately Norton detected it & safely quarantined it. WHEW! Marilyn ----- Original Message ----- From: The Taylors <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, November 13, 2000 6:12 PM Subject: [TNOBION] Unknown Trojan Horse Virus > Hi All, > > Picked up a Virus from somewhere yesterday! It had no name and Norton's > AntiVirus did not catch it, nor had they heard of it. A neighbor just told > me that this was the second time he had heard of exactly the same thing > happening. His friend said that that hard drive could not be saved and they > had to buy a new one. I had downloaded new anitvirus programs a day before > so was up to date- supposedly. > > The Virus made my computer screen go blue and said there was an error. The > message was "Disk Write Error. Unable to write to disk in Drive C. Data or > files may be lost. Press any key to continue." Hitting the key would get > away from the blue screen, but it would come back in a minute or two. I > could not save anything to the hard drive. > > It was "Locked" the same as you can do with a diskette, but this would not > allow "Unlocking." > > I could download information to save it however! It would not let me format > the hard drive either. I had to format my hard drive from the original disk > and write 0's over all the informatin to make sure the virus was deleted. > > There was no warning of this virus, and no anti-virus warning message. > Norton had not heard of it. Where I picked it up is a mystery. It took about > 12 hours of frustration to undoo this. It is up and running again. Hackers > are delighted by all this, why I will never know! > > Solution - I don't really know. Just don't open e-mail from people you don't > know. Hard to do, I know. Get a good anti-virus program and keep it updated! > Norton's said update at LEAST twice a month. > > Bill > > PS; A Trojan Horse Virus is a virus sent attached to a seemingly innocent > message. When opened up it puts the Virus in your computer. Some Viruses > change names every time you open a file, and attach to it. They also attach > themselves to sent e-mail and spread from there. > > > ============================== > Ancestry.com Genealogical Databases > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/rwlist2.asp > Search over 2500 databases with one easy query! >