Sad tale of vicious virus

[DonaldM]

Well, it finally happened. As careful as I am, somehow my system got hit with an especially vicious virus. It resisted every attempt to remove it, including not allowing me to even install any programs or even search my hard drive. In the end, and with a lot of help from an IT techie, I had to completely wipe my hard drive. Fortunately, I had backed up most everything quite recently prior to the disaster. I lost about 10 days, but nothing of any real significance except one project which I had backed up on my hard drive, but had not yet backed up to my back-up device.

So, I had to reinstall everything from Windows XP on up, including PT 8.0 and all the plugins (Reason, and some of the Ignition Pack stuff I still like to use).

One issue I ran into when I re-loaded my backed-up sessions is that for some reason when I played them, everything was playing back at like 1/2 speed, even though the tempo settings were what they were supposed to be. It was weird. I re-booted, and everything was fine. What would make that happen? I can't understand how that would even occur.

The silver lining in the cloud is that, because I know a whole lot more now than I did when I started with Pro Tools 2 years ago, I can re-load everything way more intelligently! Lots of things I loaded in to just try out, I won't even bother with, since I don't use them, and my HD won't be so cluttered anymore. But, still, its a lot of unnecessary time...time I shouldn't have to spend doing this stuff but creating music! And all because some dweeb gets his/her thrills covertly and anonymously creating programs designed to mess up other people's stuff.

The lesson here is back-up everything to a separate unit and do it often. I'm so glad I had 98% of everything...but even so, I wish I had the 2% too! The second lesson is, once I've re-established everything, the studio PC is going OFF-LINE. I'll only plug it in to the net when I need to download an upgrade or some other new plug-in I want to get. And even then, I'll probably download those into another computer and then transfer via my jump drive.

[sunburst79]

Sorry to hear that. I have been VERY lucky that in my online life since 1998 I have yet to actually get a virus or Trojan. My DAW still goes online but only for updates and then goes back offline. from most of the stories I have heard the single biggest vulnerability is importing from outside media and things like iPods. I'm glad you didn't loose a lot.

I like to do a fresh install every year or so and as I become smarter I do more with less also. I try all the plug of the month and Freebies someplace other than my main machine.

[MrWillsi3]

yeah back up is for sure essential, i havent had that problem with PTs yet, but ive only had it 2 months, but lost several songs because i DIDNT back up when i had my first experience with a digital recorder, the Korg D1600, to its defense, the drive was totally freakin full...and i didnt know a lot about backing up, but i learned!

So hey quick question, i have a few songs ive done, and right now its on my main hard drive of my IMac, i dont have an external hard drive, but i do have another computer, but its a PC.

I'm just wondering what all do i need to back up...just the sessions, or should i back up the audio files, plug in file, PTS files etc of every song?

and also can i somehow get it to my other computer other than saving everything on the Mac to CD...and then puttin the CD in the other computer and saving it there also? I saw you mentioned a jump drive, but dont know exactly what that is, all i know is a typical USB cord wont work cause the one end (the A end) wont plug into the mac...maybe im missin somethin here thou, im sure there is a way other than having to buy an actual 'external hard drive' and just use the computer i already have, isnt there?

[DonaldM]

Originally Posted by MrWillsi3

yeah back up is for sure essential, i havent had that problem with PTs yet, but ive only had it 2 months, but lost several songs because i DIDNT back up when i had my first experience with a digital recorder, the Korg D1600, to its defense, the drive was totally freakin full...and i didnt know a lot about backing up, but i learned!

So hey quick question, i have a few songs ive done, and right now its on my main hard drive of my IMac, i dont have an external hard drive, but i do have another computer, but its a PC.

I'm just wondering what all do i need to back up...just the sessions, or should i back up the audio files, plug in file, PTS files etc of every song?

and also can i somehow get it to my other computer other than saving everything on the Mac to CD...and then puttin the CD in the other computer and saving it there also? I saw you mentioned a jump drive, but dont know exactly what that is, all i know is a typical USB cord wont work cause the one end (the A end) wont plug into the mac...maybe im missin somethin here thou, im sure there is a way other than having to buy an actual 'external hard drive' and just use the computer i already have, isnt there?

A jump drive is just a storage device that plugs directly into a USB port on your computer. Its very useful for transferring files from one computer to another, for example.

For actual back-ups, I use a USB drive that has like 300 gig of storage space on it. I have all my PT sessions in one folder called "PT Sessions" and then I create a separate sub-folder for each new session as I create them. When I back up, I simply back-up my "PT Sessions" folder as is and everything in there gets saved.

After this fiasco, I connected my USB drive to my PC and then simply copied the "PT Sessions" back into the PC and everything was there.

Are you sure you don't have any USB port on your MAc...I find that hard to believe.

[scar97]

I ONLY connect to web when I update or absolutley have to. One thing I try to do ALWAYS is download anything i can from another PC, then scan it (updates, MP3's of worktapes or anything else). Once it is clean then I use a USB stick to transfer it to the main studio PC.

I use the USB drives for backup as well (WD passport 300 gig..I have about 10 of them) and archive to DVD when I have time.

I would also highly recommend acronis for your HD images. I love it

[MrWillsi3]

oh no it has a USB port, plenty of them, i was just saying they are all the 'B' ports (the rectangular shaped ones), and my PC has the same thing, a 'B' port, but a USB cord has an 'A' port (square shaped) and a 'B' port...so i had no way to connect the two, but i guess thats where the jump drive comes into play, kind of like the 'middle man' right?