Tips on resolving a virus attack

Prevention is better than cure
—Anonymous

The saying is undoubtedly true. Prevention of any problem is far better and simpler than the head ache of having to cure the same!! All of us using computers know that virus attacks are a common phenomena. This being said, we still download music/videos from unsafe sites, we still sometimes receive mails from unknown people or sites. If you suspect a virus, either contact a data recovery service immediately, or try and self-diagnose the situation.

One could say, “You can't stop living because you know you're going to die!!”

With that attitude one shouldn't be surprised to find his/her system infected with a virus!!! The real question is how do you diagnose that it is a virus attack and not some other problem? There are some simple steps or symptoms to do the same:

·    strange sounds come from the system randomly
·    unexpected/unknown messages and images pop up suddenly
·    the CD ROM drive opens and closes at random
·    random programs start on the system
·    your friends and others in your contact list receive messages you never sent them
·    the computer freezes and encounters errors frequently
·    your computer slows down when programs are started
·    problems while loading the OS
·    deleted/edited content in files and folders  
·    the light on your main unit flashes rapidly—hard drive is accessed too often
·    Microsoft Internet Explorer freezes or functions bizarrely  

While these are ways to diagnose a virus attack, you should always have an anti-virus in your system. It has also become increasingly vital to ensure that the anti-virus is up-to-date.

Here's what to do if you think you have detected a virus:

1.    Disconnect your computer from the Internet or any other network
2.    start the system in Safe Mode or from a Windows boot disk, if the computer cannot boot from the hard drive (error at startup)
3.    back up all critical data to an external drive (a floppy disk, CD, flash memory, etc.).
4.    if you do not have one, install anti-virus software
5.    Perform a full system scan.
Most anti-viruses today can detect and remove a virus efficiently from the system. But a relapse of the virus often causes a problem. Worse than that is the fact that there are some viruses which cannot be treated by anti-viruses, even reformatting the drive often doesn't help. In such situations one should turn to experts in data recovery services in India to help solve the problem. They perform hard drive recovery which also allows them to salvage data from the virus infected hard drive.


Stellar Data Recovery Services, India, is one such organization. Since they have labs spread across India, it is quite easy for users to contact them and take their guidance in any kind of hard drive related problem. Stellar performs hard drive recovery from all sorts of damaged drives (burnt, corrupted, broken etc).