Online Backup Recommendations?

[msbuck]

So, my laptop has been badly, severely, infected with a stinking virus.  I'm in the process of attempting to recover my data before I reformat...

I do have a backup on an external drive, but it's not as recent as I would have liked (shame on me, I know).  So I've been trying to recover what data I can since the last back-up.  However...now when I connect my external drive I'm getting errors, so now it looks like I have no backup afterall....big, heavy, sigh,....   :-/

I know about Carbonite, but I'm wondering if anyone out there has any experience with any online backups?  Right now I don't have the energy to research, plus personal recommendations always carry an extra bit of weight.

[darrylri]

Here's an alternate route:  

• Buy a new disk for your laptop and an external laptop disk usb enclosure.  
• Swap the drive out of your laptop and into the enclosure, put the new drive into the laptop.  
• Install a fresh system on the laptop and a good antivirus program!
  
• Connect the now-external disk and scan it.
• Copy your data files to your laptop.
• Format the external drive and use it for backup.

[montmil]

Here's an alternate route:  

• Buy a new disk for your laptop and an external laptop disk usb enclosure.  
• Swap the drive out of your laptop and into the enclosure, put the new drive into the laptop.  
• Install a fresh system on the laptop and a good antivirus program!
  
• Connect the now-external disk and scan it.
• Copy your data files to your laptop.
• Format the external drive and use it for backup.

Christ on a crutch! Being a card carrying Luddite, I don't understand a flippin' word of your instructions.
And I thank God for that, too.
Step away from the mouse and get outta da house.

Monte "when it gets f****d up I'll just buy a new 'un"... or get my pre-teen grandson to help Miller

[darrylri]

Monte, a man's gotta know when to hold 'em, and when to fold 'em, and I admire you for knowing when.

[Lucky_Lou]

So what is "Good" antivirus software only time i have had a virus was when i was using AGV waste of space, i tried Norton but had alsorts of operating issues i now use Mcaffe which for some time has worked well but we can only down load it now as most stockists in the UK no longer carry it and PC world are thrusting there own products at us and my experiance with there "Tech" guys is that my granddaughter(age 7) is more helpful at least she is polite and tells you when she doesnt know the answer instead of making some bull up.
Lou

[wilcom]

So what is "Good" antivirus software  

NOD32 is supposed to be the "hot ticket".  a review is here:

http://www.cashsherpa.com/2011/04/12/review-of-nod32-from-eset-cashsherpa-com-review-of-nod32-antivirus/

[Barry]

So what is "Good" antivirus software only time i have had a virus was when i was using AGV waste of space, i tried Norton but had all sorts of operating issues i now use Mcafee  

Lou, I used to run McAfee on over 500 PC's at school. I just ditched it because it used so much of the older machines resources they ran slow. Not a bad antivirus otherwise.

We changed to avast! standard suite which is much better. There is also a free version of avast! available which I've had on test for a while and that seems just as good for a home PC. I don't know of anything better that's free.

[Lucky_Lou]

Barry forgive my ignorance but can you run two versions side by side? for instance if you were unsure of a freeby could you test it while retaining your existing AV software ?
Lou

[msbuck]

Thanks Darryl.  That's essentially what I ended up doing.  I've gotten the new hard drive installed and recovered (using my recovery disk) and I was able to upload some of my most essential files to 4shared, an online file sharing site.  (Took FOREVER with my slow computer!)  

I have the enclosure on order and will either download what I need from 4 shared or recover it from the old drive when I get the enclosure.  

I've been using ZoneAlarm Firewall and Avast anti-virus.  It was Avast that signaled the virus.  Alas, I must have had it awhile because I had over 23,000 infected files with probably a dozen trojans.  I've also installed Malwarebytes on the new drive.  

I've downloaded DriveImage XML and made a clean image of the new install, so if this ever happens again I have a better starting point.  

[Darwin_R65]

Hi all,

I used to steer clear of the microsoft products and favoured AVAST . AVG, etc.  but the writeups for microsoft essentials all applaud mcirosoft for finally getting it right.

So I've installed microsoft essentials on many PC's and run spybot (Search and Destroy) to look for malware. It's free for home users.

John