Then you can be sure you've got a clean system. This thread is locked. You can follow the question or vote as helpful, but you cannot reply to this thread. I have the same question 0. Report abuse. Details required :. Cancel Submit. DaveM Independent Advisor. There is no guarantee that a System Restore will fully remove malware, it depends on the type of malware.
If you are unable to get into Windows, then perform a System Restore, then when you get into Windows, run a full offline scan with Defender or your preferred 3rd party Anti-Virus and also run a full scan with the free version of MalwareBytes to see if either of those finds and removes the malware.
How satisfied are you with this reply? Read this article about recovering files removed after a virus attack and how to do it with Windows integrated tools or third-party programs. How to recover computer files encrypted by ransomware? Has your computer been attacked by viruses? Do you want to recover files deleted by malware?
With the universal transition to using data in a digital format, the overwhelming majority of user data personal, social, public and business-related is now stored, processed, transferred and serviced with all kinds of computer devices.
In this connection, one of the most important requirements for all such devices is the mandatory established high standards of ensuring data safety and protecting it from unauthorized third-party actions. Virus attacks by malware belong to one of the most widespread types of harmful influences affecting user data. The range of possible effects and functionality of such applications is extremely wide, and their uncontrolled expansion via the Internet makes this problem a global challenge.
Infecting a personal computer device with a virus can result in all kinds of adverse consequences, one of the most widespread effects being removal of user files.
Our article will focus on restoring files after such virus attacks. Deliberately deleted or damaged user files, blocked access to certain elements of the operating system of the computer itself, selectively encrypted or modified files, erased or removed partition tables, getting your computer under control of outside hackers, involving it in remote illegal transactions or hacking other computers, personal data theft, spam sending and other nasty things are only a minor share of all those activities your computer may become involved in or subject to after it becomes infected by a virus.
Modern antivirus programs have learned to recognize and disable, isolate or eliminate malware and therefore protect computer devices from such risks. However, computer viruses are also evolving rapidly to implement varied algorithms and remote actions intended to enable their harmful effects. Too often, they succeed in removing user files completely or partially — and the situation becomes critical when such files exist in a single copy without any backups available. Creating user file backups is a good element of your data protection strategy to withstand data loss that may come as a result of virus attacks.
If you back up important files regularly, you can secure them against many types of data loss — caused by both malware effects and physical issues like a storage device suddenly breaking down.
However, the volume of data that we are using — and hoping to keep in safety — is growing constantly. It requires having several storage devices which means more extra expenses. It is no wonder then that many users prefer to keep all their backups on a single drive. As a result, getting it accidentally infected by a virus means losing or damaging both original copies and backups alike.
That is why the question of restoring files lost after a virus attack becomes crucial for many users — especially when it appears as the first reaction after discovering such loss. A computer virus is a kind of autonomous and harmful executable code that can use certain vulnerabilities within the operating system to infiltrate into the code of other programs and system management files, reproduce itself and send such copies through various channels of communication to infect other computers.
A virus or a medium for its propagation can appear in the form of either particular programs containing computer code or in the form of various data with attachments containing automatically executed commands that trigger the infestation process.
One of the main tasks for viruses is to spread themselves as widely as possible to achieve the goals of their developer author.
Most viruses are developed for one of the following reasons:. Some viruses initially designed as a joke may show an pop-up picture, video or webpage that splash onto your screen unexpectedly and for a second only, which certainly creates some inconveniences for your work but cannot damage or remove your data. On the contrary, other viruses meant to inflict some damage are in fact designed to steal or remove important user files.
Often such viruses cause problems in the work of hardware and software systems which then result in certain files or the entire operating system being deleted, disruptions in the structure of data allocation, preventing users from work by blocking their files completely or partially, increasing the number of system errors, starting resource-intensive processes and so on.
The main channels for spreading viruses and infecting computer devices are the Internet as the global informational network, local networks and removable media. Initially, most viruses were spread through the use of removable media when using a drive containing viruses could eventually infect many computers. Nowadays, though, the primary source of infestation is getting a virus from the network — for example, by clicking on a link received from unreliable or suspicious websites, an email etc.
There is a number of threat-provoking actions that may potentially open the door to your operating system for a tricky virus:. Actually, there are just too many ways for a virus to get inside your computer, and the harsh reality of life is that they are getting more numerous and sophisticated every day. That is why an important limiting factor to help prevent virus infestation is to always use trustworthy antivirus software especially when you have just bought a new computer or completed a scheduled reinstallation of your operating system.
In theory, viruses share a similar algorithm of action. Being attached to a kind of carrier — be it a drive or just a piece of data circulating throughout a network — the virus makes its way into a computer device and infects it. After successful infiltration, the virus may lie dormant until certain circumstances trigger its execution. This way, a virus remains invisible for a user and the computer shows no signs of virus infestation. When certain conditions are present, the virus begins its harmful activity by attacking system and user files, especially in computers within a certain network.
As a result, its harmful activities damage the file system and operating system, change file names and even erase data which can be a terrible loss. Summing up, it is evident that a computer virus can provoke major issues for proper operation of the computer and system services and result in loss of important data which may eventually lead to unwanted expenses.
That is why recovering files deleted by a virus attack becomes a significant task that requires special attention. This operating system features several built-in tools based on the backup approach which save user files in accordance with the user-defined settings. The Windows operating system cannot directly scan the computer for deleted or erased files and recover them. However, the functionality of its integrated tools makes it possible to back up a selective list of files and folders and restore them at your command if the original data is lost.
The operating system offers several methods to try that give users good chances to detect and recover copies that can be used successfully instead of the lost files. An obligatory requirement for using these backup tools is to have them configured and enabled in the Windows operating system. If the Windows backup settings have been enabled previously, then you can restore date from such backup with the integrated system tools.
There are different ways to access the tool for data recovery from backup. For example, click on the Start button in the lower left corner of your desktop on the Taskbar, and open the main Windows menu. In the list of all installed applications, drag the slider down and find the section Windows System. Open the nested menu and select Control Panel from the list of available apps.
In the next window, scroll down to the Restore section and click on Restore my files. It will start a system-integrated file recovery tool working with a backup copy. In the new window, click on Search, Browse for files or Browse for folders and add the files you are going to recover from the corresponding archive. Choose a directory where to recover the selected files a new location or the original one and click Restore to accomplish the process. This method of file recovery is quite simple and can be used to restore a single file or folder as well as an entire logical disk.
To start it, use Windows File Explorer. Open it in any way you prefer, for example, by clicking on the folder-shaped icon in the Taskbar. In the File Explorer window, select the necessary section, folder or file, and right-click on it. In the context menu, select Restore previous versions from the list of available actions. In the Properties window, find the tab Previous Versions to see all previously saved files that the system created automatically based on the backup settings you have configured.
Choose the necessary files and restore the data you were looking for. Bear in mind, though, that this method restores the previous version of your data and uses it to replace the current data. As this replacement operation cannot be canceled in any way, such recovery method should be used with caution. File History is a function to save previous versions of documents and other user files in the Windows operating system, and it enables recovering earlier versions of files after they have been modified accidentally, damaged, removed or affected by ransomware activities.
By default, File History in Windows regularly saves backups for all files from the folders selected by the user, and for the files from OneDrive cloud storage which are available locally on this computer, and keeps their older copies for an unlimited period of time.
Users can restore various versions of files that can be viewed and recovered with the help of navigation buttons on the timeline.
You can open the File History tool in a number of ways: from the search panel, from the Settings or from the Control Panel. However, the easiest way to access File History of a certain folder or partition is from the Windows File Explorer.
Open the File Explorer and go to the necessary folder. In the Home tab, find the Open column and click on the History button fashioned like a clock on the background of a folder. The File History window for this folder will open to show you numerous temporary copies of its files saved at different times and dates. Select the necessary copy of a file or choose all files and restore them by clicking on the round green button with a white arrow inside it — you can find this button between the other two buttons for switching between file versions.
A particular kind of Internet swindling that has become widespread recently is directly connected to encrypting user files by various malware and then demanding to pay a ransom for removing restrictions imposed on the use of the infected files and the operating system in general. This type of virus threats comes from malicious software classified as Ransomware. Restrictions imposed on the operating system of a computer may vary by duration, have all kinds of additional requirements and is implemented in a number of ways.
Based on the system restrictions that can be visually perceived we may recognize two types of malicious influence:. There are many types of ransomware and unfortunately, there is no single methodology for recovering user data that would work each and every time.
The general algorithm to eliminate a virus infection for all cases can be formulated as a series of steps:. Some modern viruses may possess a combination of features that enable them to lock the computer and encrypt user data at the same time. That is why it is necessary to bypass the screen lock before you try restoring the encrypted files , and you can do it by starting the operating system in safe mode before you begin the recovery process.
This way, you can prevent the virus from launching protective mechanisms which are intended to remove user data after a certain period of time. Immediately after recovery, you should save the files to an external storage device and clean the operating system with an antivirus.
In addition, it would be a good idea to format the disk that contained the virus. In some cases, you may have to reinstall the operating system as the viruses can damage certain system files or registry keys which prevents the OS from working properly. The best protection against ransomware is to backup important user data regularly and quite often, and to prevent virus invasions of your devices by keeping your antivirus software and virus databases always up to date.
If the operating system is already infected, user data can be decrypted after malware effects with a special tool which tries to identify the virus family; if identification was successful, the tool provides the user with a special file that can decrypt the infected data.
On the Internet, you can use a free-of-charge web service where you can upload an infected and encrypted file or the file containing the demand to pay ransom and let the service identify the ransomware family; in some cases, this service can also help you decrypt the files if the virus family was identified.
One of such services currently containing information on over ransomware products and updated regularly is ID Ransomware. When you upload an encrypted file or a file demanding to pay ransom, the service will compare certain patterns in the uploaded data against the ransomware database.
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