Spybot just DELETED EVERYTHING!! I have pic

[GotDeleted]

So I run spybot and there were 2 items on the list.

1) AntiSpyWare2007
(SBI $F3630697) stDIR_PROG>\SeC:\Program Files\e-zhopper

2) MediaPlex tracking cookie

I proceeded to get these items fixed and then strange things started to happen.

It was taking longer than usual and icons started to disappear from my desktop. I start checking folders and they just disappeared.

Now, I can't even access my local drive (C:\) because it doesn't boot to my OS.

I get the following message - ntldr is missing Press Ctrl Alt Del to Restart

I can only imagine the damage it CAUSED!! What the hell just happened. There probably goes my photos of my baby daughter.. thanks a bunch.

Took the pic with my digicam
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/5420/gotdeletedxc1.th.jpg (http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gotdeletedxc1.jpg)

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Restore the files you deleted with Spybot - Search & Destroy: Run Spybot - Search & Destroy, select 'Spybot - Search & Destroy' --> 'Recovery' from the left bar and restore all the files and entries, which are in association with the item that should be restored. For your problem, it is especially important to have the tools update installed. Here is the direct download link for the tools update (http://www.spybotupdates.com/updates/files/spybotsd_tools.exe) .
After following these steps please try again. Be sure that all the Explorer windows are closed. Maybe you will have to restart your computer.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

Seems like you have a problem with a damaged hardware or your harddisc and memory.
If the problem with booting is still present please have a look at this link:
http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[Tattenbach]

So I run spybot and there were 2 items on the list.

1) AntiSpyWare2007
(SBI $F3630697) stDIR_PROG>\SeC:\Program Files\e-zhopper

2) MediaPlex tracking cookie

I proceeded to get these items fixed and then strange things started to happen.

It was taking longer than usual and icons started to disappear from my desktop. I start checking folders and they just disappeared.

Now, I can't even access my local drive (C:\) because it doesn't boot to my OS.

I get the following message - ntldr is missing Press Ctrl Alt Del to Restart

I can only imagine the damage it CAUSED!! What the hell just happened. There probably goes my photos of my baby daughter.. thanks a bunch.

Took the pic with my digicam
http://img216.imageshack.us/img216/5420/gotdeletedxc1.th.jpg (http://img216.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gotdeletedxc1.jpg)

I have been using SpyBot - S&D since early 2003 and can sincerely say that it is unable to do something like what you described.

I can imagine how sad is to be unable to get back your precious pictures and important data but at the same time I do not understand how, after the PC being around almost 30 years, there are still people who do not backup their data.

The pictures and data are probably still in the hard drive (almost sure they are). You just need some professional help to get them out. Talk to a tech savvy friend of yours and have him/her burn a Bart PE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) boot disk in another computer. Use this CD to boot yours and pick up your data. Perhaps you could even still repair your current installation with some help.

And one question: How comes you took the picture? Were you expecting something like this to happen?

[Terminator]

I feel your pain as I know what its like to lose valuble data. I remember when my last computer went belly up from a total Hard Drive and RAM failure a few years back, one minute the computer was working then it wasn't. I lost loads of stuff but I managed to salvage about 3/4 of the data from back-up disks.

[GotDeleted]

Tattenbach experience here has nothing to do with anything here. This issue is a one time occurrence and I doubt any cobalt or basic programming experience would have prevented this. The Spybot team has not dispute this issue themselves

I reported this so the Spybot team is aware of this and for others too.

I took the photo because directories, files and icons were disappearing left, right and center. I wanted to make a screen shot but MS Paint was deleted. I wanted to get some sort of reference so the Spybot team could explain what happened.

[Tattenbach]

Tattenbach experience here has nothing to do with anything here. This issue is a one time occurrence and I doubt any cobalt or basic programming experience would have prevented this. The Spybot team has not dispute this issue themselves

I reported this so the Spybot team is aware of this and for others too.

I took the photo because directories, files and icons were disappearing left, right and center. I wanted to make a screen shot but MS Paint was deleted. I wanted to get some sort of reference so the Spybot team could explain what happened.

Again, SpyBot - S&D is not able to delete your HDD.

But let's get to work. Get a friend prepare you a Bart PE CD and boot with it. Big chances are that you will be able to recover your data. There are other ways, like plugging your HDD to another computer (there are adapters that wires the bare HDD to the USB port). Boot with the other PC (either Windows or Linux) and try, again, recovering your data using appropriate software.

http://www.elcomsoft.com/aefsdr.html

[chi-va]

From my point of view, it seems that something has wipe out the local drive. This would explain why the folders have disappeared one after another. Not sure if this is related to the removal of "AntiSpyWare2007". Apart from Tattenbach's opinion, Spybot-S&D is able to delete a lot of data if there is a serious removal error. The last update of this detection was 2008-03-12. I'm sure, that the team can confirm that there are no errors in this detection if they have the time to check it.

Some data should be still left but Windows shouldn't be operable anymore because MS Paint is stored in the important System32 folder and this folder seems to be affected as well.

It would be advisable to check the drive with an updated antivirus software because the decribed behavior sounds more like a virus. So be carefully before "plugging your HDD to another computer". Won't be funny if someone else lose his data as well.

Do you need any help for recovering the data?

I would recommend to use PC Inspector for recovering lost files:
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1
It is also a PC Inspector plugin available for BartPE.

[Tattenbach]

From my point of view, it seems that something has wipe out the local drive. This would explain why the folders have disappeared one after another. Not sure if this is related to the removal of "AntiSpyWare2007". Apart from Tattenbach's opinion, Spybot-S&D is able to delete a lot of data if there is a serious removal error. The last update of this detection was 2008-03-12. I'm sure, that the team can confirm that there are no errors in this detection if they have the time to check it.

Some data should be still left but Windows shouldn't be operable anymore because MS Paint is stored in the important System32 folder and this folder seems to be affected as well.

It would be advisable to check the drive with an updated antivirus software because the decribed behavior sounds more like a virus. So be carefully before "plugging your HDD to another computer". Won't be funny if someone else lose his data as well.

Do you need any help for recovering the data?

I would recommend to use PC Inspector for recovering lost files:
http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file_recovery/info.htm?language=1
It is also a PC Inspector plugin available for BartPE.

Spybot can delete a lot of data but not uninstall programs as described. It could only happen if you try to uninstall something that had previously hijacked your system. In this case Spybot is not the culprit.

I would also disagree with the danger of transferring virus from a non active OS (first thing you would do is scan it with different tools), but perhaps you are right and your advise is good if they do not know what they are doing. That's why I first recommended Bart PE.

[GotDeleted]

I've used PC Inspector to recover files and I'll be trying that out.

I've just reinstalled the OS but I will investigate further whether this was a hardware issue or virus. I highly doubt it was a virus since I do scans and updates frequently. The system was protected by Avast.

Any tools you recommend to scan hard drives and memory?

Thanks

[chi-va]

If there is none specific test software available from the producer for checking the harddrive then you can simply use "Chkdsk":

http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B315265&x=19&y=7

I don't know any direct issues from losing local stored data and the RAM(Memory) but it couldn't harm your system if you test it with "Memtest86+":

http://www.memtest.org/

I hope you have already found the pictures:greeting:

[drragostea]

GotDeleted, the problem is you did not think twice before doing something. I really do not think this would have happened if did not get malware. Reason is that, Spybot detected malware, and bingo. Here it is. You may want to try a System Restore, but its too late now. g'luck. :police:

[Yodama]

I reported this so the Spybot team is aware of this and for others too.

I took the photo because directories, files and icons were disappearing left, right and center. I wanted to make a screen shot but MS Paint was deleted. I wanted to get some sort of reference so the Spybot team could explain what happened.

for reference: Spybot S&D did not delete everything on your computer. As you can see from your screen shot only one folder was marked for removal.
Also note that the screen shot shows a "broken" output. The reason for this is either related to malware or broken hardware.

As for checking your hardware please follow the advise from chi-va. If you know the vendor of your hard disk you can get a diagnostics tool for the hard disk on the vendors website.

Protection however is never absolute. Malware/Virus producers have an edge over the security software vendors or in other words the attacker has the initiative. That means even if you update on a regular basis there is always a time window when your computer is unprotected from specific threats. Additionally more and more malware try to avoid technical means of protection by using social engineering. That does not mean that protection software is useless, but it can only cover one aspect for you, you have to take care of the other aspects which are:

* prevention
** reduce user access rights for internet usage when possible (do not use administrators for surfing)
** use a personal firewall to help sandboxing internet access
** do not install software from unknown sources
** do not apply cracks for software
** avoid advertising
** avoid active scripting

* backup
** backup important or unique data regularly
** keep data on a different partition than the operating system, that way backup and restore for both can be done more flexible