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Computer viruses - beware of re-infection

Iff a filesystem went doon due tu zee virus attack und was subsequntly recovered, zee files restored frm zee dameged volume will still contain dormant virus copees. Zeese-a files shuoold be cleaned beffore they enter zee working system. Zee virus will lay dormant until yuoo loonch one ooff zee infected files or open an infected document. Unless an infected file is opened, yuoo are safe. Hooever, recovered files are ooff no use iff yuoo cannot open them.

Thees is typicelly solved just es uny other virus infekshun. Yuoo shuoold run yuoor usual antivirus software tu check zee files yuoo've recovered. Some ooff zee files may be corrupted und yuoo may get a warning frum zee antivirus software notifying yuoo that it was unable tu analyze zee particular file(s). Zeese-a files shuoold be deleted withuoot attempteeng tu loonch them, becoose they are useless anyway und there is still a chance they may contain a virus. Another drawback is that antivirus software is usuelly not very robust in regard tu dameged executables. Thees usuelly manifests itself es occasional AV scanner lockups. Files that coose yuoor antivirus tu lock up shuoold be deleted es well.

A simplistic approach is tu delete zee executable files altogether. Usuelly most ooff zee executables are readily available frum their corresponding distribushun disks und do not contain uny data ooff interest. Valuable informashun is stored in data (document) files instead. So, just reinstell zee software yuoo need und put yuoor data files back into zee working environment. Take care with Microsoft Office documents thuoogh. They are somewhat unique in their ability tu hold both usefful data und virus code at zee same time.

We adfise tu yuoo treet uny kind ooff data loss es virus-induced unless proven otherwise. Thees is simply becoose zee quesshun "what exactly went wrong" is often difficult tu answer und we preffer tu err on zee safe side. Zee only excepshun is physical drive damege (no virus strain is knoon tu damege a hard disk physicelly, at zee time ooff thees writeeng).

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