破财挡灾

Finally restored my computer and got back online.
Had lived out a Computer Disaster during the last three weeks. Having enjoyed a stable system for many years now, I was unfamiliar with the latest system problems. This ordeal had been costly, and extremely tedious (but at least highly educational).

On 06Feb wed - computer was infected by a Trojan which hijacked my browser. The invading program continuously generates instructions to download more unidentified software.

07Feb - all attempts to contain the infection has failed and system became increasingly unstable. Even the resident anti-virus program got crippled. I grimly prepared for the worst.

08Feb - Formating the PC was inevitable. Made backups of some critical files (this was not too hard thanks to a good regular backup practice). Formatted, but realized Win XP cd was not available. (Loan or given away at some point)
The following days saw a series of desperate but fruitless quests of running around borrowing different versions of Win XP only to get stuck during Setup. It due to conflicts between older versions of XP, and my current new generation hardware.

16Feb - Had no choice but to purchase a proper Home OEM version of Win XP, which overcame the conflicts and had the operating system up at last. But that's not the end.

17Feb -Was unable to attain correct configuration for internet access. Troubleshooting took a good 3 days and plenty of help from Singnet Tech Support. Finally got one of the two modems online.

23Feb - (Week 3) Restored most of the core programs. Crisis is over, though the Ethernet modem remained nonfunctional and some secondary programs are not yet installed. Will be conducting a full data sync, and critical backup over the following days, to avoid the same problem in future.