__/ [jetcallum@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] on Tuesday 20 September 2005 23:24 \__
> Something weird has been/is happening on my PC. Over 250 files have
> been corrupted, all at 22.07 this evening. The files have all had
> their extension changed to aud. I have looked inside a couple and an
> example is given below. I can't imagine what has happened, I have done
> an internet search and can't find any indication of what could have
> caused the problem. Obviously the files are useless now as their
> contents have changed.
>
> The example given was a zip file containing an Andrew Boss DVD player
> firmware update file and it is possible that all the changed files
> were zips/rars but I can't be sure. The example is approx a quarter of
> the contents of the file. All files are between 8 and 10 Kb in size.
>
> I have Kaspersky AV running and it hasn't picked anything up.
>
> Grateful for any help to prevent it happening again.
The key question would have to be: have you made any backups? If not, since
the actual content of files was altered, there is probably no way back. Had
the file allocation tables been affected solely, I would have suggested
scandisk.
Have you installed some program/s recently? Have any prompts come up on the
screen to which you replied "yes"? Are all the files more or less
identical? Can you seen any recurring pattern? What files were affected and
did they all reside on the same directory? If so, which directory?
I suggest you back up your hard-drive immediately! This doesn't sound like a
case of bad sectors and either way, these things spread as data gets
shifted from sector to sector.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "Mod me up and I'll mod you 'insightful'"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 74572E8E
5:45am up 26 days 17:59, 3 users, load average: 0.12, 0.32, 0.31
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