"...Flipper died a natural death, he caught a nasty virus..."

Well, so did I.

I found a trojan.gen during a anti-virus scan, and I quarentened it, and then I deleted the quarentenes. Instead starting my computer the next time I used it in the safe mode and deleting the quarentened files, I just forgot and started my computer as I always do, and BAM! That was all she wrote........

Well, it cost me a shitload of money, and Geeks On Site was here for 6 hours trying to retrieve everything he could. It wasn't pretty. I have a lot of photos backed up on discs, and a bunch backed up online, but I literally lost hundreds of photos out of my archives, and I lost all the articles I've done over the years for the magazines. I still haven't had time to go in and restore those photos and articles yet, I just haven't felt like it, I'm just too busy with everything else going on here.

Not only that, but I've spent hours trying to get Windows Office Suite and it's Email boxes functioning again (I lost all my contacts when Office went), downloading Windows updates, reinstalling software like Microsoft Front Page, importing my website, downloading Adobe Reader, Flash, and Photoshop, etc, etc, etc.

I'm still not done, and it's been almost a week now, but my Emails are coming through and going out again, and for the most part I'm back online and can function.

I know it's been said a thousand times, but don't get complacent.....back your shit up. There are things and photos I lost I'll probably never be able to ever find again. I'm pretty bummed about the whole thing.