please help me, i'm new here, and yesterday i made a terrible mistake..,.

i was distracted by this girl i know, and was downloading utorrent...i thought i got it from c-net, but, UNFORTUNATELY, i clicked the WRONG thing! it opened somewhat like it normally would, but then when i went to run it, it went completely crazy, unlike anything i've ever seen, or imagined, for that matter. first it started blinking a few times, then the addess bar just started filling with random characters (i think they're random), then it changed the primary administrator user acct.'s name, somehow hid it from view completely except for a flash when opening, added another acct., unnamed, but w/ a cartoon pic of a pink robot, which also only is visible for a fraction of a second, changed the name of my computer, changed all my files around, in the orig. primary acct, kept my alternate acct. and only that.
i tried to shut it off, but it happened SO QUICKLY; i was astonished. when i tried to re start, i couldn't get in to my orig. acct., so i decided to try opening the alt. acct.; i was going to try it in safe mode and do a system restore (i'd set a restore pt. less than a 1/2 an hr. before this all took place.) f10 didn't work at all, and when i got into the alt. acct., i couldn't access the task manager... i did the restore, and it did nothing....the primary acct. is still gone, alot of music is scattered around all over the place on my HD (that's me, tho, i had this HD pretty disorganized, and had multiple copies of numerous files in numerous places...),

ANYWAY, after 3 attempts to restore, all unsuccessful, i looked around the web for a CMD command to do a restore from the CMD LINE... i never found that, but i did find a way to create a hidden administrator acct., w/ elevated privileges, w/ a CMD command.... then found anothe thing which showed me how to over ride the startup, and force it to startup in safe mode... i turned the option on, but forgot to write down the CMD for turning it back off. now it only starts in safe mode no matter what.

will someone PLEASE HELP ME??? i'm pretty new to all this, and i'm completely overwhelmed. i still can't get into anything, 'cuz i doin't recall the CMD code to toggle the safe mode override feature off. i finally downloaded avira to protect against malware, onto the toshiba...but the compaq is in bad shape; the network adapter & the video card no longer function at all; both of which WERE WORKING; when i downloaded this crap. nothing seems to work properly, and i can't get it to even see a signal for the wi-fi;.... there are SO MANY SERVICES, i can't begin to guess which ones are vital to the system, and which are garbage; i can't change any of the advanced options for anything ('cuz i'm in safe mode); i tried to restore the system, but it did NOTHING AT ALL; and i fear that, unless i get some advice and instruction from some people who are far more knowledgeable than i am, i'm doomed to lose the compaq, and the enormous amount of music, and other personal files, i.e., pics, communications, business records, pretty much my entire life; permenantly -- and be out a perfectly good computer, as well.

i've never used these forums and boards before, and i was a bit skeptical, at first, but now, after reading some of the posts and comments, i am a little more at ease about it...it appears that some sites (like here!) are filled with people...just good, decent, people, that aren't trying to get something, they just want to help each other get the most out of their time, equipment, and web experiences.

i hope that that is true, and someone will come to the rescue here.

thanks, and i hope to hear from you soon.

peace to all,

hi_beam

Your system is toast now and completely FUBAR.

Your best and safest solution is to do a complete reinstall of Windows 7 and a thorough wipe of the hard drive in a low-level format.

I'll be out of contact for about 10 hours, so be patient.

I have to agree with Nibiru2012 your system its toast and needs to be restored

There is a possible alternative, you use another computer go to the torrent website, DO NOT click the link, but use source code to figure out some keyword of the link, then you google it, from your decription, it might be a certain javascript virus, and if you are lucky, you might find a fix to remove it. Then you can try to repair your system with windows installation disk, repaire not reinstall, and your files could be saved.

When they say toast, they really mean messed up pretty good, not like your equipment is burned up. Sounds like you installed a virus and as they said the safest thing is definitely a reinstall.

hi_beam, welcome to the forum!

Like the others have already stated, you need to reinstall your OS. Hopefully you burned your reinstall discs when your computer was new, or they were furnished with your computer.

There's one thing that I'd like to point out to you now, and that's protecting your data. You stated that your "life" is on there. If that's the case, you need to be backing up your computer on a regular basis. There's several good free backup programs on the net, Macrium Reflect is one of my favorites.

http://www.macrium.com/default.asp

There's also Todo, it does file & disc images.

http://www.todo-backup.com/products/home/

The damage is done, what you need to do is use this as a learning experience (I've been there, too). Backing up your drive is simple with one of the above programs. There's many backup drives on the market for less than $100, depending on your needs. Stay away from places like Best Buy, they charge an arm and a leg for them. Go online to Newegg, there's many to choose from for all budgets.

Best of Luck,
Cat

You won't lose your computer hardware, but you will more than likely lose ALL of the above such as your pictures, records, music, etc.

Unless you can pul the hard drive and put into another computer and access those files such as docs, jpegs, MP3 or whatever. The MAIN danger in this that whatever virus attacked your system may migrate to the other computer.

You have learned a valuable lesson here; and that is never, ever store stuff you want to permanently keep on your main computer. Invest, that's right, invest in an external hard drive setup or at the very least put all the stuff on DVD-RW discs.

We haven't heard from you... cat got your tongue (or keyboard) ?

Or that girl that he was distracted by....

Cat

well, the craziness continues.....
as one or more of you pointed out, the virus on to compaq DID migrate to the other computer....now both are infected. i was able to get access by creating hidden admin acct, starting in safe mode and then tying to do a restore....the fourth time it actually did it. but only to a point. i had to go to a bunch of different files to piece together my music, thankfully, i then loaded it onto a 250 GB HD from my old hp that got broken. now i have to figure out how to reload my system. my repair disk doesnt work, ansd i can't seem to create a system image, it lets me get to where i choose disk or hd, and determine which files i want to include in the image. i try to keep the windows system, and nothing else, since it's now all on the other drive. it won't allow me to. why? is there a CMD command to create a system image??? i need to re install BOTH SYSTEMS now, and this is a serious drag...my disk for the toshiba didn't work (i know not why), and no one ever made one or even created a restore point for the compaq. what can i do?????

signed,
now i know to back up all my stuff better! ( and no, no cat, nor girl, got my tounge!)
a.k.a. hi_beam

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I have merged the threads, since basically we're dealing with the same issue here.
~Nibs

Do you have a Windows 7 install DVD in the version you were using? In other words, 32-bit or 64-bit version in the Home Premium or Professional edition?

Quit worrying about the "restore discs", they're worthless to begin with and you need to do a COMPLETE CLEAN INSTALL on both systems now. You'll waste your time and patience by trying to mess with it now by any other means. Accept the fact that you WILL lose all past data, music, photos, etc.!! Basically, you've lost it already... so it's time to move on and get your systems working with clean installs.

Be sure that you have the latest drivers for the hardware for both systems prior to install of Windows 7.

If you need help with this, please inform us so we may help you further. Tell us exactly what you need to minimize the number of posts.