Date: 07/30/05 (Computer Help)    Keywords: virus

I had posted something in computersupport but no one could really help me. This x-posted to computerhelp. This happened about a week ago and I just cut and pasted the following from the old entry.

"OS is Windows XP.

Turned on my computer moments ago to discover that everything (i.e. music files, the entire "my pictures" folder, avatars, IE and Mozilla bookmarks, documents, other folders in my user account...thingy) is GONE. Only my user account was affected (other people use this computer). Did a few searches, looked in the recycling bin in the hopes something would turn up. Nothing. I'm running Norton right now, hoping it'll catch something. Sound like a virus anyone's heard of?

Yesterday afternoon all my IE bookmarks disappeared, and I thought it was something stupid on my part. Mozilla ones were still intact. Possibly related to this problem.

The only thing I can think of was I caught something while downloading something, and I'm hoping that (a) I'm wrong and (b) this is reversable. Is it even possible to attach a virus/other nasty to an .mp3/other audio files without changing the type of file it is?

Oh, and it should be added, incase it's help to anyone and somehow involved in this, that in the place of all my bookmarks in IE is something I did not have there before calling itself "VDM22.tmp". How it got there, I haven't the foggiest."

A friend of mine said he didn't know of anything that could entirely erase these folders off the compy and that perhaps they are hidden somewhere. I did a search for some of the stuff, nothing. Under another name? Gone forever? Anyone else seen anything like this before?

Source: http://www.livejournal.com/community/computer_help/453577.html