C:Drive-Lost Data

[Ginger Harp Seal Pup]

Earlier today, I was on the pc when I got a message appear in a yellow bubble at the bottom of the screen. It said that another program had tried to save something (the program was a download program called Shareaza) on the C: Drive but couldn't because the data on the C drive had been lost. It told me to save somewhere else.

Panicking, I clicked on My Documents, but it wouldn't open and an error message came on the screen. I can't remember what it was now, but I couldn't open it. After that, all the Shortcuts disappeared. Winamp went, Firefox went, every single program had gone. Even MS Paint and the calculator, stuff that is already programed on to the pc anyway, it all went. All that was left was Search, Run and a few other things. Even the Start logo on the green button had gone.

I tried to turn the computer off by clicking on Start (which was now just a plain green button) and turning it off from there, but I got the same error message from before when I tried to access My Documents. I then turned it off by pressing the small button on the tower to reset it and when the pc came back on, everything was back to normal.

I deleted all the files that were downloading on Shareaza because I presume one of them was corrupt and had caused the C drive to malfunction. Should I get rid of Shareaza altogether? My dad uses it, see, and he won't be too happy, but I'd rather have my computer in tact.

Or could something else have caused this? Any help appreciated.

[mazil]

Meep! How scary. And strange.

It might be worth doing a virus and spyware scan, just to check nothing's going on there. Otherwise... I'm not familiar with Shareaza, but it possibly isn't completely Shareaza's fault that it happened. Windows does very strange things sometimes! Especially if you haven't reformatted your computer in a long time.

I'd probably back up as much essential stuff as I could, and then keep a close eye on Shareaza and then uninstall it if anything suspicious happens again.

[Dragonfire]

I think I had that problem once, but I'm not sure... What version of Windows are you running?

I've used Shareaza before, but I'm not sure if this could be what's causing it. I know Shareaza is a lot more trustworthy than other P2P programs like Kazaa.

[Ginger Harp Seal Pup]

I think I had that problem once, but I'm not sure... What version of Windows are you running?

I've used Shareaza before, but I'm not sure if this could be what's causing it. I know Shareaza is a lot more trustworthy than other P2P programs like Kazaa.

We've used it loads too and it's a good program; I just think my dad downloaded a dodgy file, which can happen. Someone said my harddrive might be on the way out though, so I'm not sure whether I should invest in a new one or not. I'm going to run a check on it first, to see if any errors come up or not.

[DiscordantNote]

We've used it loads too and it's a good program; I just think my dad downloaded a dodgy file, which can happen.

That's probably what happened. Those viruses can be sneaky little things.

Run a virus/spyware scan. If you can't get rid of it, but have been backing up your harddrive occasionally, better use your backups. You might lose a few things but you won't have the virus anymore.

It might be a good idea to buy a new harddrive, especiall if your computer is an older model. not that the harddrive is getting too old, it's just that many modern programs like to take up more space (especially games). Plus, it may run a bit faster. Even a smaller external one that you use to store your backups on would be a good idea no matter what happens to your current one.

[ArwenEarendil]

It is possible that you downloaded a dodgy file. I highly doubt that it was the hard drive (though you should change it if it's really old)

The best thing to do is not use those popular P2P programs. Malware tends to lurk there. Besides, they install a lot of useless stuff, and are so hardware intensive that it puts a lot of stress on the computer.

Get rid of it. I'm not going to promote programs here because it is in some ways piracy, but there are better, lighter, not as popular programs out there. They have little to nil malware, because most of them aren't well known (therefore, not as many people to target). You could also BT.

What probably happened to you was that you opened an infected file. It needed to be activated, and when you opened your documents, start menu, etc, it was actived. And so the destruction was wreaked.