Virus clears folder contents

[Godfuader]

Not sure if it is possible to recover deleted files. Just realized that I had a virus. Went into a folder and noticed that all files were deleted. Here is the odd part, the sub-folders remain, but all the files inside were gone.

Tried doing a system restore and it only let me go back to last Sunday. Did that to no avail. Then I tried running Mcafee, and got an error, which is a virus guarantee. Ran superspyware.com online scanner which detected a few trojans. After doing that Mcafee was able to update and did a complete scan to clean out all remaining bugs, i hope.

Now I can still cannot see any of the files, just the principle folder and all sub-folders with no content. Anyway to recover the files?

ps. The virus log showed that the bug was inside Sun/Java folder.

[adam c]

did you check the recycle bin? i had something similar and it moved everything there

[Godfuader]

Originally posted by adam c
did you check the recycle bin? i had something similar and it moved everything there

Thats where I checked first. Then did a search for key file names...and nothing. Its just odd because it has all the folders and subfolders...just the files are missing.

[Bizzareo]

If your running windows xp you can nuke the virus and trojans with the program "hijack this".

If its win 7 or vista, try Norton, it does a bit better job in terms of scans. Try looking at the active processes and figuring out what it is. Either than that, take it to a shop

[adam c]

try running a program called recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva but make sure you move all the recovered files to a different drive after the scan is complete or you risk losing the information by writing over the data

[TorqueDog]

Originally posted by Bizzareo
If your running windows xp you can nuke the virus and trojans with the program "hijack this".

If its win 7 or vista, try Norton, it does a bit better job in terms of scans. Try looking at the active processes and figuring out what it is. Either than that, take it to a shop

Norton Antivirus/Internet Security is an awful product.

And Hijack This does not remove anything. Hijack This provides an in-depth look at all the processes, files, and automatically executed applications (including BHOs) in the system to assist in finding rogue software and malware.

For malware and many of the more common 'viruses' out there, I'd run a scan of MalwareBytes Anti-Malware and SpyBot Search & Destroy. MalwareBytes first, S&D second. Sometimes a program called "ComboFix" can be used if the infection is rather deep.

For a 'virus' scan, Avira Free Edition is a good quick solution.


For file recovery, give Recuva a try.

[adam c]

actually avira is garbage, i had it before and it wouldn't detect shit, just spend the $40 on something like panda or kaspersky

[TorqueDog]

I used to hate the living hell out of Panda, but their newer product impressed me. I had one machine completely screwed with a mailer that infected NDIS.SYS. I ended up trying their ActiveX-based free web scanner. It found every instance of it.


Kaspersky isn't bad either.

[Godfuader]

Originally posted by adam c
try running a program called recuva http://www.piriform.com/recuva but make sure you move all the recovered files to a different drive after the scan is complete or you risk losing the information by writing over the data

Pretty good program. Has recovered a chunk of the files. Thanks!