About 4 days ago, I did something I shouldn't have. I turned off my anti-virus program because I was under the impression that it was giving me a "false positive" (that being when an anti-virus software says something's bad when it's really not) because I had encountered this kinda thing before.
I shouldn't have been so careless.
the next 15-20 minutes afterward I can only describe as being a spiraling out of control problem that no anti virus could contain. it was too fast. Within 30 minutes, my windows was unable to operate fully then it would only loop in the welcome screen anytime I try restarting. never going into windows, but just hanging on the fringe of it. Taunting.
the next 3 days after that, was filled with feeling anxious, stressed and worried that I would not be able to recover anything from my computer. including my drawings, and all my spritework.
one thing led to another, and well basically I couldn't save the system. least not windows. I was eventually coaxed into upgrading to windows 7 (I had been on XP for years) and well last night I was worried that not only would I reinfect my system, but that'd also mean flat out no chance at saving drawings.
I am happy to report that I did save them though, as well as game sprites. I lost all my game files, both ones I was working on and ones I was playing including Perfect World, Phantasy Star Online, and several others.
I also lost photoshop, paintshop and about 97% of my photoshop brushes. I could only save a few.
It will take a few days to get everything back in order.
Let this be a lession to everyone: SCAN EVERYTHING YOU DOWNLOAD.
